As reported by this morning's Wall Street Journal, an Indonesian maid working in Saudi Arabia was executed for murdering her employer with a kitchen knife. There aren't many details available. In a separate article the BBC News mentions the woman committed the purported crime "after suffering abuse," suggesting that the trial uncovered mitigating circumstances (I assume there was a trial of some kind...am I being naive?).
The woman's name was Ruyati binti Sapubi. Apparently the court gave little weight to the abuse the woman likely had suffered or the possibility that she was defending herself from further abuse. The Saudi authorities determined that justice would be served and the world made safer with this woman's execution. She was beheaded with a sword in the city of Mecca. It is not known whether her head was then put on a pike and paraded through the city as a warning to other foreign domestics. We can only hope that her executioner was more skilled than the murderer of Daniel Pearl in 2002.
This morning I learned that there are upwards of 1.5 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia, the majority of whom are women working as maids. On the face of it their condition of employment seems hardly better than indentured servitude. Given Saudi Arabia's patriarchal state and creepy brand of puritanical Islam, this situation seems ripe for the exploitation of women.
Indonesia is complicit in this unseemly arrangement as it enjoys the money this army of maids sends home to bolster its economy. The Wiki entry also suggests that Indonesia was hesitant to demand greater accountability from the Saudis for fear they might restrict the number of Indonesians it allows to make the hajj, the annual pilgrammage to Mecca. However, the public dismemberment of Ruyati binti Sapubi appears to have crossed a line and Indonesia has now announced a moratorium on sending more of its women to cook the Saudis' meals starting August 1st.
The Saudis for their part have apologized profusely and promised not to behead any more maids for awhile.
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