“Our media did not play a balanced role,” he said. “It only pointed out the negativity and did not bother to bring positive examples.”
He said reporters should send photographers to the airport to take photos of the many maids who depart after many years of work in the country, their arms laden with gifts from their benevolent Saudi employers, their eyes filled with tears of sadness at their departure and their minds filled with warm memories of their Saudi experience.
Al-Baddah said that media should also underscore punishments meted out to Saudi employers who abuse their servants and the role of Saudi human rights organizations in responding to abuse cases.
“The women who tortured Sumiati (Salan Mustapa, the Indonesian maid who was severely abused in Madinah) was jailed and will undergo trial soon, yet no newspaper focused on that, and surely, no one exposed the reality of the incident as the unofficial Indonesian media reported that her lips and tongue were cut by scissors, which is far from the truth,” said Al-Baddah, who added that when maids abuse their employers the media disguises their identities.
Al-Baddah commended what he characterized as the reasonable reaction of the Indonesian government in pointing out that these cases are rare.
“There are 1.5 million Indonesian workers in the Kingdom and only a handful of incidents have come out,” said Al-Baddah, who called the negative coverage out of Indonesia propaganda.
“It’s normal for other nations to fear for the wellbeing of their citizens, but the exaggeration could lead to a fixed image that is far from reality.”
