PHL official to visit 'runaway' Pinays at Riyadh prison

A Philippine Embassy case officer will visit two Filipino maids who were arrested on suspicion of being runaways and detained at a women's prison in Riyadh’s Malaz district. The officer hopes to speak to the two maids about the circumstances surrounding their arrest, the Saudi news site Arab News reported on Tuesday. "The embassy has requested for a permit to visit Nisa prison in Malaz district so that I can talk to the two runaway maids whom the police arrested," said the officer handling the two maids' case. The Saudi police earlier told the embassy they could not get any information from the two maids, whom the report nicknamed Leonora and Ofie. The two maids reportedly run away to Majmaa from their sponsors in Riyadh but later decided to return to the capital. However, the police arrested them along with three Indian nationals the next day in a villa in Diriya. "The police said that after giving few personal details such as their names, Leonora and Ofie clammed up when asked about their sponsors. It's probable that they are trying not to unnecessarily incriminate others who might be involved in their case," the case officer said, adding that Leonora had given her name as "Kristine Ali Noor." "Much has been known about Leonora, whose case had also been reported by other newspapers catering for overseas Filipinos, but not Ofie," the officer said. "Unlike Leonora, we don't even know her real name, which part of the country she comes from, if she has a family or not, and details of the Philippine agency that processed her papers for deployment to Saudi Arabia," the officer added. Earlier, Leonora told Arab News she arrived in the Kingdom in the middle of 2010 to work as a caregiver, but ended up working as a maid. When she complained, her employer's wife took her to the local agency that deployed her. The agency placed her with another employer who allegedly raped her. "Because of the incident, I escaped and went to the agency, which did nothing regarding my complaint," she said. The agency eventually looked for another employer, but as things were allegedly getting worse for Leonora, she escaped. – VVP, GMA News