Arab Pets

A lot of Muslims have pets.

Yes, I just heard a segment on NPR about Saudi pets yesterday - Sri Lankan and Malaysian women who come to work as house maids and are locked up for years, beaten, raped, denied their wages or the ability to leave.

The Malaysian embassy has a shelter housing 200 women at any given time who managed to flee their "owners", but this is just the tip of the iceberg, since most of these women are never let out into daylight.

There was a case recently of a woman who was beaten badly. She managed to get out of the house and run to a hospital. There was gangrene on her fingers and toes from repeated beatings and they had to amputate them.

Her "owners" confessed to beating her and there was a "fair and balanced trial", covered extensively by the media. The "owners" were let go, without even having to pay her for years of backwages, and the woman was sent home empty handed... well, she didn't actually have hands at this point.

Such pets are common not only in Saudi, but throughout the Arab world. I think Palestinians prefer Russian girls.