Saudi arrested for abusing maid

Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst

There are an estimated six million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia

Reports from Saudi Arabia say police have arrested a Saudi man and are questioning him about claims that he beat and locked up an Indonesian maid.

The maid, Nour Miyati, is in hospital in the capital Riyadh, where doctors have amputated some of her fingers.

Her hands and feet developed gangrene after she was locked up for a month.

Reports of foreign workers in Saudi being mistreated, denied their wages or sexually abused have become so routine that they rarely attract attention.

But the case of Nour Miyati is so gruesome that the Saudi media have publicised it, and the Saudi authorities have been forced to take action.

Never paid

The Indonesian maid worked for a Saudi family for 18 months for a monthly salary of $160 (£85) - money she never received.

According to an official at the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh, when she asked to be paid she was beaten by her employer and his wife. They injured her eye and knocked out several of her teeth.

When she developed gangrene in her hands and feet they made her sleep in a bathroom - and locked her up whenever they went out.

Doctors have now amputated her infected fingers and say they may have to amputate her toes too.

Arrest

Meanwhile, according to the English-language Arab News, police have arrested her Saudi employer and held him for questioning.

The man's wife was also reportedly detained for questioning but then released.

There are an estimated six or seven million foreign workers in the Saudi kingdom.

In a report last year, the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch alleged that some of them are kept in conditions of virtual slavery.

Saudi officials say the report exaggerates the extent of abuses, and insist that all complaints are investigated.