Her struggle is now the focus of an attempt to challenge diplomatic immunity in Germany and could place further pressures on the already strained relationship between Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
Dewi Ratnasari, the 30-year-old maid, began working for the Saudi diplomat and his family in April of 2009. For the next year and a half, she worked 18-hour days, seven days a week and never received her monthly wage of 750 euros, the German Institute for Human Rights reported.
She told police she was “humiliated like a serf,” and that she was punched and regularly beaten with a stick by everyone in the diplomat’s family, including the five-year-old son.
The diplomat had confiscated her passport and Dewi (a pseudonym) spoke no German, so she had few options but to remain and work. But in October of 2010 she escaped and sought help from Ban Ying, a Berlin-based human rights association assisting migrant women from Southeast Asia, and the GIHR.
“The worst part is they never called her by her name, but by the Arabic word for ‘shit,’” Ban Ying’s Nivedita Prasad told Deutsche Welle.
Because of diplomatic immunity, which shields embassy employees from criminal prosecution and most civil suits, Dewi had no way to hold her employer accountable. Read the rest on:
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