RE: The Plight of Asian Maids

Further on the issue of human rights abuses against Asian maids working in the Middle East:

Across six columns of today's Arab News in Jeddah, my friend Rasheed Abou-Alsamh has the story of a Filipina house maid who says that she ran away from her Saudi employer after spending 18 years herding his goats in the mountains. The story says that Leonora Somera, 65, freed herself with the help of the Philippines consulate in 2005, but has had to remain in Saudi Arabia in an effort to win a court settlement for unpaid wages. Now she's willing to go home without the money, but bureaucracy continues to hold up her departure.

--By Scott MacLeod/Riyadh