Saudi Arabia ( Sri Lanka maid gets beheaded- World Outraged by this punishment ) Woman's head cut off ?

The recent beheading of an underage Sri Lankan maid in Saudi Arabia has shocked the world, but in Tamil Nadu, a Muslim group has reportedly slammed a writer for his views against this barbaric act.
One would have expected the incident, which is yet another instance of the human rights violations of women migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, to outrage people in the region. But as The Hindu reported on Tuesday, “Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath” has challenged a writer and DMK chief Karunanidhi for a public debate on the death penalty, indirectly justifying the killing.
The victim, Rizana Nafeek, was a Muslim girl, who going by her family’s account, was just a kid. But the Saudis had no qualms in beheading her, notwithstanding the shock expressed by the UN, Human Rights Watch, and EU, or even the desperate pleas of the Sri Lankan government.
The issue that is being covered up in Tamil Nadu as an Islamic debate on death penalty, however raises two important questions: the unhindered and brutal abuse of migrant women by Saudi Arabia and the inability of countries such as Sri Lanka and India to check this practice because of their dependence on the blood and sweat of its migrant women.

Protests in Sri Lanka following the beheading: Reuters

First, let’s look at the plight of migrant women from Sri Lanka in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
By November last year, Sri Lankan migrant workers sent home a record US$ 5.43 billion, which was more than 10 percent of the country’s economy. Of this, nearly half came from women, most of whom are housemaids in Saudi homes.
A few years ago, about 80 per cent of remittances to the country came from women. The fact of the matter is that these women have protected the Sri Lankan economy with their menial jobs for years – even during the high-cost war and the global financial crisis.
Six years ago, these remittances had accounted for 34% of Sri Lanka’s export earnings, about two-thirds of which came from women. A study by Monash University – one of the many pieces of research on migrant women in Sri Lanka – shows that in the Gulf countries, women work in “unregulated and isolated conditions” with “significant risk of abuse and exploitation”. Even as academic euphemisms, these expressions indicate the scary conditions in which the women work.
The International Organisation of Migration (IOM) and the Human Rights Watch have documented that the women are subjected to physical and sexual assaults, besides other forms of intimidation and violence such as confiscation of passports, enslaved working conditions and torture by their employees.
The main culprit in such cases are the governments of “sending countries” themselves, because they don’t want to kill the geese that lay these golden eggs. For instance, as the Monash study noted, the Sri Lankan government had been “cautious” in tackling the issue for the fear of losing its “competitive advantage”.
What is this competitive advantage?
The availability of its women for abuse in return for a few dollars in foreign exchange.
In fact, a few years ago, the Sri Lankan government had stooped to apologising to the Saudis when a maid from the country committed suicide on the latter’s soil.
Although there have been relentless efforts by the IOM and oragnisations such as Migrants Forum and Caram Asia along with national governments to improve the working conditions of women in the Arab states, Saudi Arabia has steadfastly stonewalled every request because they employ the largest number of migrant women in menial jobs. While most Middle Eastern countries agreed to the Sri Lankan government’s request to raise the minimum wage to US$ 150 for maids, the Saudis asked them to take a walk.
The beheading incident is a wake up call for not only Sri Lanka, but also for countries such as India. A few months ago, another maid, this time from Indonesia, was executed on some unproven grounds.