Diplomats from Bangladesh have been forced to set up safe houses inside Saudi Arabia to protect hundreds of women who face sexual and physical abuse from employers in the kingdom, according to embassy cables leaked to Middle East Eye. “Maids that have come to us have described being ill, overworked, facing verbal abuse and torture after they ran away from their employers and seek shelter at the safehouse,” the diplomats said in their report to Dhaka. In the memo, written in 2015, officials say that an average of three to four women per day sought refuge and requested for more resources at the shelters, including additional beds and CCTV.
The diplomats also appealed for a counsellor and note that the embassy has no female diplomats in the shelters to help the women.
Maids that have come to us have described being ill, overworked, facing verbal abuse, and torture after they ran away from their employers and seek shelter at the safehouse Often the women do not have passports: the
majority of Bangladeshi women who come to Saudi Arabia have their documentation taken away by their employers on arrival, meaning they have limited options to leave the kingdom if they chose to flee.
Employers often lodge complaints against their workers in Saudi courts, delaying their repatriation back to Bangladesh still further. “It takes them 15 days to one month, sometimes three to six months, to prepare their paperwork to send them back home,” the memo said. “Until then, they stay in the safe house.”
The memo also noted that Bangladeshi diplomats needed to set up more safe houses across the Gulf country to keep up with demand as more women head for the kingdom to work due to an increased demand for domestic workers. From 1 January until 28 February 2018, 16,624 women entered Saudi to work – just 4,000 less than the total for all of 2015. The cable does not mention the current number of safe houses. But in 2017 it was reported that at least 250 women were using the facilities in Jeddah and Riyadh while they wait to be repatriated back to Bangladesh. Middle East Eye asked the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bengali ambassador inside Saudi Arabia for comment. It had yet to respond at time of publication. Women who fled Saudi and lived in shelters before being repatriated back to Bangladesh have independently confirmed to MEE the existence of the homes. Zobaida, a former maid who returned to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia in March, told MEE in Dhaka that she knew of dozens of women who had gone to the shelters. Like the hundreds of women who continue to be stuck inside the safehouse waiting to be processed, Zobaida stayed for three months before being allowed to leave.
