Sondos Al Qattan And The Plight Of Filipina Workers In Kuwait

     For beauty to be something more than skin deep, there has to be an awareness and concern for the people in one's own backyard. This woman tries to deflect her callousness onto events in other lands and places, and to blame her critics for a racism she most surely possesses. She calls the criticism of her an attack on Islam, on the hijab, on Kuwait and on the oil rich gulf states.
     A kinder woman with true inner beauty would simply have apologized, and would do everything she can- with her wealth, power and influence- to improve the plight of vulnerable Filipina women working and living in her country. Instead, Sondos declared, "What do human rights have to do with the (worker) keeping her passport? Even our kids do not hold on to their passports." Sondos also defended her belief that foreign workers do not have the right to days off. Poor working conditions for many and a long history of documented abuse in Kuwait and other oil rich gulf nations are ignored.
       Foreign workers are not slaves. They are not children. They are human beings that deserve to be treated with respect, decency, and to be paid a fair wage.
       There are many instances of rape, murder and torture of foreign workers in oil rich gulf states. One Filipina worker in Kuwait was found dismembered in the apartment freezer where she was employed.
        The good thing that can come from the ugliness of externally beautiful Sondos is for the exploitation, mistreatment and abuse of Filipina foreign workers, and all foreign workers, to end. It must become the international norm that no foreign worker lose access to their passport and the ability to return home at their choosing. It must be the international norm that foreign workers are not left alone and vulnerable, and that mechanisms are in place so that a foreign worker can escape a situation of abuse, not be trapped in it. Abusers, and those that defend abuse, shame their country and religion when they use religion and nation as an excuse to defend the inexcusable. She is an embarrassment to those Kuwaitis and others in the gulf region that do treat their foreign workers with respect and decency.