Reimpose ban on Saudi-bound OFW domestics

I think the government was ill-advised in lifting the ban on domestics to work in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.

I worked for Saudi Aramco for 15 years, long enough to know that every female domestic helper sent to Saudi Arabia is a potential victim of either sexual or other forms of abuse. I learned a lot about this place by mingling with and observing my own adult students. Saudis in general are not rude, but they can be crude. For instance, at the airport alone, don’t expect a tourist treatment because Saudis know Pinoys are there not to spend their money on them but to earn money from them.

They’d scrutinize every baggage, push it aside, and it’s the new arrival’s job to run after it and put back his stuff into the bags. While a Saudi is over anxious to stop his car so girls can cross the street, he does so only to ogle at the girls passing by.

Once I noticed my students having some noisy fun at the back rows, so I asked what was going on? “Teacher, Ali is narrating to us what he did to his wife during their first night after the wedding.” That straightforward answer only revealed their low regard for their women. In another incident, on my way up the stairway in school, one student going downstairs just pinched my cheek and remarked, “Teacher, you’re so beautifuI” (and I’m not even handsome). In Saudi Arabia, there are neither babes to date nor booze to drink. Saudis are the most socially and sexually deprived males I know. No wonder stories of male Pinoys being molested sexually abound. Eh kung lalake, nabibiktima, babae pa kaya? (If men are victimized, how much more women?) Thus, beards and moustaches became the fashion for Filipino men to look “macho” and unattractive to Saudis. Nurses can go shopping only in groups. A woman going shopping without a companion is an invitation to danger.

A normal-growing Saudi man experiences no courtship and engagement in life. As a child he might have seen and played with girls in the neighborhood, but as soon as these girls reach puberty, they veil their faces from men’s eyes until they get married. So a Saudi male virtually has no social life with the opposite sex throughout his manhood or adult life. That’s why most Saudis fly abroad to live normally even only for a few days. The first thing a Saudi asks the stewardess for is alcohol. No wonder, with their money, they go on a binge, sleep with a willing woman asap. But back home, most Saudis are deprived individuals who haven’t lived a satisfied manhood experience. That’s why when they see the new unveiled face of a Filipino girl, chances are, this poor unwary girl, regardless if she looks homey,  is going to be the object of their desire. You know the rest of the story. It’s in the bad and sad news of a Filipino domestic being raped or beaten by her Saudi employer. Let’s therefore ban our OFW domestics, for their own safety, from going to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.

—POMPEYO S. PEDROCHE,
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