Dawadami where they lived is nearly 400 kilometres from Riyadh and was to this place Rizana Naffeek was sent a few days after arriving in Riyadh. She was recruited as a housemaid and since she was underage for such an overseas posting, the job agency that handled her travel documents had falsified her records and obtained a passport for her stating that she was born February 2, 1982 whereas she was actually born February 4, 1988, that is six years later. At the time of the tragic incident she was only 17 years old.On June 16, 2007, a three-member panel of judges of the Dawadami High Court in Saudi Arabia found Rizana Naffeek guilty of murder of the 4-month old son of Mr and Mrs Al Otaibi under Shariah Law and sentenced her to death by beheading. She was granted one-month stay of execution to lodge an appeal against this sentence.
The tragic incident occurred at the Al Otaibi family residence around 12 30 in the afternoon of May 22, 2005 while the infant was being bottle-fed by Rizana Naffeek. She has been in the employ of that household for only two weeks at that time. She had arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 4, 2005 billeted to work as a housemaid for the family of her sponsor, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi, a civil list officer in the country’s Ministry of Finance.
Dawadami where they lived is nearly 400 kilometres from Riyadh and was to this place Rizana Naffeek was sent a few days after arriving in Riyadh. She was recruited as a housemaid and since she was underage for such an overseas posting, the job agency that handled her travel documents had falsified her records and obtained a passport for her stating that she was born February 2, 1982 whereas she was actually born February 4, 1988, that is six years later. At the time of the tragic incident she was only 17 years old.
One wonders how many children have been recruited from Sri Lanka in this manner to slave in the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates by job agency sharks!
Domestic workers recruited to work in Saudi Arabia come under the provisions of the Saudi Labour Law. It requires that all domestic workers brought into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform certain duties should have those clearly stated to them. If, for example, one is employed as a housemaid, her sole duty is to clean.
However, if an overseas worker is employed to look after children she must be certified and trained in childcare. She must be recruited as a baby-sitter or childcare professional and certainly not as a housemaid. It appears the Al Otaibi family ignored this stringent requirement at great risk to their infant son and in violation of Saudi Labour Law.
In the trial of Rizana Naffeek it was not the Saudi Labour Law that was applied. She was tried under the traditional Shariah Law which itself demands thorough investigation and filing of appropriate documents especially medical and other certificates relevant to the case. It is only after that a judgment can be delivered.
Rizana Naffeek does not speak Arabic and hardly any English; her employer’s wife and others in the household do not speak Sinhalese or Tamil, Tamil being Rizana’s mother tongue. Her sponsor-employer works in Riyadh, some 400 kilometres away from the Dawadami household of his family. In other words she was left at the mercy of a family who could only express themselves to her in gestures.
It is common knowledge that far too many Sri Lankan housemaids are being abused with utter cruelty. There is the recent story of a Sri Lankan housemaid who had eggs daubed on her face and boiling water poured all over her because the eggs slipped from her hands, fell down and broke. Far too many reports indicate they are badly treated and survive on low-rationed food and even their salaries do not compensate their hard labour sufficiently.
When she was recruited, Rizana Naffeek was still a schoolgirl from a poverty-stricken hamlet in the Muttur District attending Sapir Nagar School and her dream was to have a good house and help her siblings to continue with their education. Many young girls from her district had sought employment in the Middle East and this opportunity had attracted her as well.
She was not only under age for recruitment but did not even have any experience doing household chores; her house was a hovel with a leaky roof and the family subsisted on what their father could trade in for firewood he gathered in the neighbourhood. They were also among those who were severely affected by the tsunami.
She certainly cannot be expected to be a baby-sitter let alone to feed a 4-month old infant. She was employed in the Al Otaibi household as a housemaid and she should never have been made to bottle-feed a child. In this respect it is the mother of the child who is culpable of neglect of an infant child.
Choking while bottle-feeding is one of the causes of infant mortality recognized as such throughout the world. It is quite unfortunate this factor was ignored or overlooked by the court that tried Rizana Naffeek. Furthermore, based on the terms of employment, the court should have taken to task the sponsor-employer Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi and his wife. It appears, instead of being asked to account for their neglect, which led to such a horrible consequence, Rizana Naffeek was tried as a proxy for the death of their child.
How she came to be charged for strangling the baby to death remains a mystery. If that was the way the Al Otaibi family made representations to the Dawadami Police where she was arrested and held, then there is a gaping weakness in the charge. In the Police Station she was believed to have been harshly handled without being able to be understood and with no translator facility given and was forced to sign a document which was submitted to court as her confession. It was on that basis she was charged for murder by strangulation.
Was this the story that was given by the Al Otaibi family or constructed by the Dawadami Police? Rizana Naffeek was forced to sign a document that she could not read, let alone even to have an idea what the contents in it were!
This becomes even more inconceivable to believe when Rizana Naffeek had an opportunity to have her understood with the help of an interpreter when she explained her plight to the Sri Lankan Embassy. What was recorded at that time was also filed in court but it seems to have ignored it altogether.
She had also said that she was born in February 1988 and not February 1972, which too was ignored. She was not even given the opportunity to submit her Certificate of Birth, which in comparison to a passport is a more important document; and that much for thorough investigation required under Shariah Law. The court simply ignored the conflicts it faced with the charge that were in favour of Rizana Naffeek and in fact they underscored her innocence.
Since the Shariah Court sessions are held behind closed doors where the accused hardly has a role to play and may not even understand what is being discussed or communicated if they are not-Arabic speaking, one is not sure whether any medical reports were submitted in the case as to the cause of death of the baby.
Here again did the court merely take the words of the mother suffering the anguish of her baby’s death and blaming Rizana Naffeek for his death?
When infants are breast-fed or bottle-fed care must be taken that the feeding is done properly holding them at the right angle, keeping them comfortable and then soon afterwards ensuring they are burped. This could not have been expected of a 17-year old nor could the mother have, even if she had instructed her properly but with only gestures. It is the mother who should have bottle-fed the child; he was only four months old. What has the Shariah Court to say about the mother’s neglect?
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which prohibits the execution of offenders of crimes committed when they were less than 18 years old. The moment the question of her age was raised at her trial, the court should have thoroughly investigated this factor and her Certificate of Birth should have been entered as a production.
If the court has failed to give credence to it, then it has failed to uphold the rights to which Rizana Naffeek was entitled and denied her the results of investigation that were required by the Shariah Law itself. In this respect, did the court itself act against its own law? The answer, most regretfully, has to be in the affirmative.
Even though Rizana Naffeek was unfairly charged and improperly tried even under the harsh provisions of the Shariah Law, the family of Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi could have saved a great deal of embarrassment to the Shariah Court and on the international scene, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia let alone to the family itself by accepting the court’s request to pardon her.
No court anywhere in the world not even under Shariah Law if Rizana Naffeek was properly tried with her rights ensured, could have convicted her of murder. Accidental death is not a capital crime under Shariah Law and this could have happened in the case of the infant child even if the mother was feeding her baby; it has happened to others and it will continue to be one of the causes of infant mortality.
Rizana Naffeek is not guilty of the crime she was charged with and tried by the Dawadami High Court.
(Victor Karunairajan is a South Asian journalist who lives in Canada. He could be contacted on serendeebam@gmail.com)
The tragic incident occurred at the Al Otaibi family residence around 12 30 in the afternoon of May 22, 2005 while the infant was being bottle-fed by Rizana Naffeek. She has been in the employ of that household for only two weeks at that time. She had arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 4, 2005 billeted to work as a housemaid for the family of her sponsor, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi, a civil list officer in the country’s Ministry of Finance.
Dawadami where they lived is nearly 400 kilometres from Riyadh and was to this place Rizana Naffeek was sent a few days after arriving in Riyadh. She was recruited as a housemaid and since she was underage for such an overseas posting, the job agency that handled her travel documents had falsified her records and obtained a passport for her stating that she was born February 2, 1982 whereas she was actually born February 4, 1988, that is six years later. At the time of the tragic incident she was only 17 years old.
One wonders how many children have been recruited from Sri Lanka in this manner to slave in the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates by job agency sharks!
Domestic workers recruited to work in Saudi Arabia come under the provisions of the Saudi Labour Law. It requires that all domestic workers brought into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform certain duties should have those clearly stated to them. If, for example, one is employed as a housemaid, her sole duty is to clean.
However, if an overseas worker is employed to look after children she must be certified and trained in childcare. She must be recruited as a baby-sitter or childcare professional and certainly not as a housemaid. It appears the Al Otaibi family ignored this stringent requirement at great risk to their infant son and in violation of Saudi Labour Law.
In the trial of Rizana Naffeek it was not the Saudi Labour Law that was applied. She was tried under the traditional Shariah Law which itself demands thorough investigation and filing of appropriate documents especially medical and other certificates relevant to the case. It is only after that a judgment can be delivered.
Rizana Naffeek does not speak Arabic and hardly any English; her employer’s wife and others in the household do not speak Sinhalese or Tamil, Tamil being Rizana’s mother tongue. Her sponsor-employer works in Riyadh, some 400 kilometres away from the Dawadami household of his family. In other words she was left at the mercy of a family who could only express themselves to her in gestures.
It is common knowledge that far too many Sri Lankan housemaids are being abused with utter cruelty. There is the recent story of a Sri Lankan housemaid who had eggs daubed on her face and boiling water poured all over her because the eggs slipped from her hands, fell down and broke. Far too many reports indicate they are badly treated and survive on low-rationed food and even their salaries do not compensate their hard labour sufficiently.
When she was recruited, Rizana Naffeek was still a schoolgirl from a poverty-stricken hamlet in the Muttur District attending Sapir Nagar School and her dream was to have a good house and help her siblings to continue with their education. Many young girls from her district had sought employment in the Middle East and this opportunity had attracted her as well.
She was not only under age for recruitment but did not even have any experience doing household chores; her house was a hovel with a leaky roof and the family subsisted on what their father could trade in for firewood he gathered in the neighbourhood. They were also among those who were severely affected by the tsunami.
She certainly cannot be expected to be a baby-sitter let alone to feed a 4-month old infant. She was employed in the Al Otaibi household as a housemaid and she should never have been made to bottle-feed a child. In this respect it is the mother of the child who is culpable of neglect of an infant child.
Choking while bottle-feeding is one of the causes of infant mortality recognized as such throughout the world. It is quite unfortunate this factor was ignored or overlooked by the court that tried Rizana Naffeek. Furthermore, based on the terms of employment, the court should have taken to task the sponsor-employer Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi and his wife. It appears, instead of being asked to account for their neglect, which led to such a horrible consequence, Rizana Naffeek was tried as a proxy for the death of their child.
How she came to be charged for strangling the baby to death remains a mystery. If that was the way the Al Otaibi family made representations to the Dawadami Police where she was arrested and held, then there is a gaping weakness in the charge. In the Police Station she was believed to have been harshly handled without being able to be understood and with no translator facility given and was forced to sign a document which was submitted to court as her confession. It was on that basis she was charged for murder by strangulation.
Was this the story that was given by the Al Otaibi family or constructed by the Dawadami Police? Rizana Naffeek was forced to sign a document that she could not read, let alone even to have an idea what the contents in it were!
This becomes even more inconceivable to believe when Rizana Naffeek had an opportunity to have her understood with the help of an interpreter when she explained her plight to the Sri Lankan Embassy. What was recorded at that time was also filed in court but it seems to have ignored it altogether.
She had also said that she was born in February 1988 and not February 1972, which too was ignored. She was not even given the opportunity to submit her Certificate of Birth, which in comparison to a passport is a more important document; and that much for thorough investigation required under Shariah Law. The court simply ignored the conflicts it faced with the charge that were in favour of Rizana Naffeek and in fact they underscored her innocence.
Since the Shariah Court sessions are held behind closed doors where the accused hardly has a role to play and may not even understand what is being discussed or communicated if they are not-Arabic speaking, one is not sure whether any medical reports were submitted in the case as to the cause of death of the baby.
Here again did the court merely take the words of the mother suffering the anguish of her baby’s death and blaming Rizana Naffeek for his death?
When infants are breast-fed or bottle-fed care must be taken that the feeding is done properly holding them at the right angle, keeping them comfortable and then soon afterwards ensuring they are burped. This could not have been expected of a 17-year old nor could the mother have, even if she had instructed her properly but with only gestures. It is the mother who should have bottle-fed the child; he was only four months old. What has the Shariah Court to say about the mother’s neglect?
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which prohibits the execution of offenders of crimes committed when they were less than 18 years old. The moment the question of her age was raised at her trial, the court should have thoroughly investigated this factor and her Certificate of Birth should have been entered as a production.
If the court has failed to give credence to it, then it has failed to uphold the rights to which Rizana Naffeek was entitled and denied her the results of investigation that were required by the Shariah Law itself. In this respect, did the court itself act against its own law? The answer, most regretfully, has to be in the affirmative.
Even though Rizana Naffeek was unfairly charged and improperly tried even under the harsh provisions of the Shariah Law, the family of Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi could have saved a great deal of embarrassment to the Shariah Court and on the international scene, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia let alone to the family itself by accepting the court’s request to pardon her.
No court anywhere in the world not even under Shariah Law if Rizana Naffeek was properly tried with her rights ensured, could have convicted her of murder. Accidental death is not a capital crime under Shariah Law and this could have happened in the case of the infant child even if the mother was feeding her baby; it has happened to others and it will continue to be one of the causes of infant mortality.
Rizana Naffeek is not guilty of the crime she was charged with and tried by the Dawadami High Court.
(Victor Karunairajan is a South Asian journalist who lives in Canada. He could be contacted on serendeebam@gmail.com)
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