A Christian On An Umra Visa

Tuesday, 06 June 2006
By Sabria s. Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH

SOFIA’S story (not her real name) is a sad one, and offers an alarming example and insight into how criminal gangs lure thousands of young women from poor countries into the underground sex trade - a trade that is a problem worldwide, including in countries where the constitution and laws are based largely on religious teachings prohibiting such things.
Although Sofia talks with a voice full of confidence as she explains the reasons she took the dark path of sin, exposing herself to significant physical risk and endangering her health, there was a deep look of sadness in her eyes that told the real story.
It revealed what she had to go through in order to carry out what she referred to as “a family duty.”
“I came from a very poor family,” Sofia told The Saudi Gazette during a visit to Briman Prison. “I have nine brothers and sisters who need to go to school. And above all to live.”
It all began in her poor farming village in Ethiopia with the promise of a good job as a housemaid in wealthy Saudi Arabia.
“In my village, people are so naïve, they believe that gold can be found thrown away all along the roads of Saudi Arabia,” Sofia said. “They are told that Saudis change their cars yearly and leave the old ones with their keys in the streets.”
One day, she recalled, an old Ethiopian woman, who seemed wealthy to Sofia, came to the village on a quest for beautiful, young girls in their twenties.
“It was odd because it was obvious that she was looking for something far beyond skilled or strong women,” Sofia explained. “Actually, she was looking for girls with special features.”
Unlike the other girls of her village, Sofia, who was 18 at the time, was confident that she would be picked, and said as she could easily see the look of admiration in the older woman’s eyes.
“While the rest of the girls were crossing their fingers, waiting to pass the old lady’s test, I was sure that she will pick me,” she said. “I am well-known in my village for my beauty.”
Sofia is five feet, nine-inches tall and has a naturally tanned and soft complexion. It would be easy to believe she is a model. So, as expected, Sofia passed the exam and was taken to Addis Ababa in preparation for her trip to Jeddah.
Yet as a non-Muslim, Sofia was faced with difficulty of obtaining a visa to work as a maid in Saudi Arabia because most Saudi families prefer Muslim maids. But she was told not to worry about the visa because everything had been taken care of by an agent.
In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Sofia said she spent a week learning some verses of the Holy Qur’an as well as the basics of Islam in case she was asked, while she spent the rest of the month before her arrival in Jeddah learning how to take good care of her physical appearance, dealing with clients and the procedures she needed to take “precautions.”
Because Sofia was not being recruited to work as a maid, but one of the many thousands of prostitutes who are brought to the Kingdom every year.
“At that point of the journey I realized what I was heading to and what kind of a job I would have. Yet I accepted it in order to make a better life for my family and myself,” she said.
Sofia was forced to sign a paper that she was indebted to pay $10,000. The visa and her airline ticket came free. She was told that she would repay the loan in monthly installments after she began to work in Saudi Arabia.
Once in the Kingdom, where Sofia once thought her dreams would come true, she was met by a man who took her to an apartment in one of Jeddah’s middle class districts where she met the Ethiopian lady again and some other girls roughly her same age.
As the brothel “protocol” required, Sofia gave her word to her new employers that she would not reveal any information about the brothel or give the name of anyone involved if she was ever arrested. In that event, the employer also guaranteed to pay Sofia all of the money she might be owed once she left prison.
When asked, Sofia told The Saudi Gazette that she believed that she will be paid all the money she owed as soon as she is released.
All the girls who were arrested got their money when they were deported because they did not utter a word about their employer, she said.
As the Saudi government has cracked down on the prostitution, prostitutes, brothel owners and recruiters have gotten more creative. Sofia said in order not to be traced, they met clients at different apartments or locations far away from where they lived.
Brothel employees use different telephone numbers and never give an exact location or a name even to regular clients.