24 January 2013
I couldn't sleep this morning and was reading and wanted to share a true story that I think more people should know about.
As most will be aware there is a global flow of human traffic for economic reasons. In this case poor people from Asia travelling to the Middle East to work as house maids, cleaners, construction workers. The list of menial lowly paid tasks is huge. Many of these immigrant workers are the modern day equivalent of human slaves. Often poor working conditions, long working hours and very little free time or holidays.
One such person was Rizana Hafeek. She came from an impoverished family in a small rural village in eastern Sri Lanka to work in Saudi Arabia as a nanny or child carer and maid.
Rizana was sentenced to be beheaded by the Saudi Court in 2005. She was 17 years old.
Rizana had arrived with falsified passport that showed her age as 23. Other documentation said to be genuine showed her age as 17 and therefore a child making her execution a breach of child rights.
She started to work for a Saudi family and in her care one their young children had died in a choking accident. The Court said that is was strangulation.
Human rights groups have said that her trial was a farce as she had no translator and no lawyer until after being sentenced.
The Saudi government said that she could not be pardoned as the baby's parents insisted on the beheading. As is their right in Saudi Arabia.
Rizana Hafeeks family waited 8 years and then found out about the brutal execution from the media. Their request to have the body returned to Sri Lanka has been refused.
Rizanas mother Rafeena Nafeek has said that her daughter was innocent and wrongfully convicted of the killing of the baby in 2005. She has refused compensation from Riyadh saying that she would , "not accept anything from the country that killed my child".
The only reason that the Saudis have the wealth in the first place that gives them the opportunity to practice what nearly all of the educated world consider to be barbaric and that creates the requirement for this endless flow of human labour is because we fill our cars with their petroleum. We fly on our holidays with their aircraft fuel, or we buy products that have been transported using their diesel in ships and trucks.
So spare a thought for Rizana Nafeek and her family next time you pay for your fuel at a petrol station and ask yourself the question.
"What can I do to help the Rizana Naffeeks in this unjust world?".
Spare A Thought For Rizana Hafeek • Opuss № I