Saudi woman pleads guilty to immigration charge in slavery case

DENVER (AP) – A Saudi woman accused of keeping an Indonesian nanny as a virtual slave for four years pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of harboring an illegal immigrant.

Sarah Khonaizan, 35, faces a sentence ranging from probation to a year in prison and a fine of up to $20,000, attorneys said. In exchange for her guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of forced labor and document servitude.

Prosecutors and FBI agents accused Khonaizan and her Saudi husband, Homaidan Al-Turki, of hiding the woman’s visa and forcing her to cook, clean and care for their five children in their suburban Aurora home.

The story of “Saudis Behaving Badly”, unfortunately, isn’t a new one. (Check this post at Gateway Pundit for others.)

Slavery was made illegal in Saudi Arabia only in the 1960s. It’s pretty clear that not everyone got the message.

It’s good to see that US courts are prosecuting these abuses. It’s even better to see that Saudi courts are starting to get a handle on the problem, too. And perhaps as important, the general issue of abuse is starting to rise in the awareness of the Saudi public and media:

Over 1,000 Abuse Cases Before NSHR
Lulwa Shalhoub, Arab News

JEDDAH, 8 May 2006 — The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) received 1,063 domestic violence cases in the past one and a half years. Among them were 400 cases related to children’s custody after the parents’ divorce and 20 cases involving incest.

Almost all these cases are directly posted to NSHR by women, according to Dr. Suhaila Zain Al-Abideen, NSHR research director.

“Male members of the family are involved in most of domestic violence cases,” said Zain Al-Abideen.

“Cases of domestic violence against men are rare and even nonexistent,” she added.

The society received 5,000 cases since it started in the Kingdom in 2003. Thirty percent of these cases were domestic violence cases, including sexual financial, physical and psychological abuse.