Maria Alalykina

Maria Alalykina, 25, comes from Russia . Although she has recently embraced Islam, her insight into the religion is very mature.
A former member of a pop musical group called Fabrika, Alalykina also used to work as a model in fashion shows. Three years ago, she quit singing and the world of fashion when her popularity as a singer and fashion model was at its peak.
Alalykina converted to Islam with her husband, the Persian daily ’Iran-e Asr’ reported.
“It all started with a question that I asked myself. The question was why we need religious beliefs,“ she said.
She answers the question herself by saying human beings by nature need to rely on religious beliefs.
“We have popular singers and poets, but these things are not enough. Man’s soul needs a great force that it can rely on and derive sustenance at all times. This is why after a long period of research and exchanging viewpoints with many other people, I decided to convert to Islam,“ he said.
Alalykina explained that she chose Islam, because unlike some other doctrines, it has strong and sturdy foundations.
“Islam is for people who have a big heart and who do not allow themselves to make prejudgments. Many people try to live on the basis of Islamic values without knowing themselves. For example, my granny always told me that life is about overcoming carnal desires and this is what Islam says,“ she said.
She stresses that Islam does not encroach on her freedoms, as the meaning of freedom to her is making efforts to obtain more lofty values.
“This is something that I could not achieve as a western pop singer. My past life is a good example of the lifestyle that does not facilitate growth and improvement. In the materialistic viewpoint, people consider themselves so superior that no room is left for exaltation,“ she said.
Alalykina underscored that the western lifestyle makes people take excessive pride in themselves and resort to vice.
“The problem of human beings is that they struggle in the day-to-day rat race with eating and wearing clothes as their target. This is while according to Islam, the target of human beings should be to come to terms with their own merits and capabilities,“ he said.
She felt disgraced by her photos on the Internet, but God welcomes the sinner who repents.
Alalykina speaks five European languages, but she likes Arabic more than other languages. She currently teaches at a university and pursues music within the context of Islamic tenets. She has written 50 songs in the past five years.

Out of 86 domestic workers interviewed in Saudi Arabia, HRW concluded that 36 faced abuse that amounted to forced labor, trafficking or slavery-like conditions.

Saudi Arabian families are abusing female migrant workers to the point of slavery and Riyadh needs to respond with sweeping labor and justice reforms, a major rights group said this week.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report released in Indonesia that many Saudis believed they “owned“ their foreign domestic workers and treated them like slaves, AFP reported.
“Saudis treat them like chattel, slaves, like cattle. A domestic worker is like a slave and slaves have no rights,“ the report quoted a “senior consular official“ with a foreign embassy in the kingdom as saying.
The 133-page report entitled “’As If I Am Not Human’: Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia,“ was compiled after two years of research, the group said.
The work included 42 interviews with domestic workers, officials, and labor recruiters in Saudi Arabia and the workers’ countries of origin, it said.
Out of 86 domestic workers interviewed in Saudi Arabia, HRW concluded that 36 faced abuse that amounted to forced labor, trafficking or slavery-like conditions.
Some of the cases were horrific.
“For one year and five months... no salary at all. I asked for money and they would beat me, or cut me with a knife, or burn me,“ Sri Lankan domestic worker Ponnamma S. was quoted as telling the rights group.
Haima G., a Filipina domestic worker, said her employer called her into his bedroom one day soon after she had arrived and told her she had been “bought“ for 10,000 riyals ($2,670 ).
“The employer raped me many times. I told everything to madam. The whole family, madam, the employer, they didn’t want me to go. They locked the doors and gates,“ she was quoted as saying.
Nour Miyati, an Indonesian domestic worker, had her fingers and toes amputated due to daily beatings and starvation. Charges against her employers were dropped after a three-year legal process, despite a confession.
“Employers often take away passports and lock workers in the home, increasing their isolation and risk of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse,“ HRW said in a statement.
It said Saudi labor laws excluded domestic workers, so many were forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week--often without pay--for years. Sleeping quarters included closets and bathrooms.
Nisha Varia, HRW’s senior women’s rights researcher, said that in the worst cases the women were “treated like virtual slaves.“
The kingdom’s “kafala“ or sponsorship system gave employers control over the workers’ visas, meaning they could refuse to allow domestic staff to change jobs or leave the country.
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal accounted for the bulk of the women, thousands of whom sought shelter each year at the Saudi social affairs ministry or at their respective embassies.
Varia said conditions in the Sri Lankan and Indonesian shelters were “horrific.“
“I was shocked--you have 200 women in a room that should be for maybe 50 people at the maximum,“ she told a press conference.
Few of the abusers were ever brought to justice as migrant women who dared to complain risked counter-charges of adultery, witchcraft or moral degradation, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and 490 lashes.
The government has spent years considering labor reform “without taking any action,“ Varia said.
“It’s now time to make these changes, which include covering domestic workers under the 2005 Labor Law and changing the kafala system so that workers’ visas are no longer tied to their employers,“ she said.
“The Saudi government should extend Labor Law protections to domestic workers and reform the visa sponsorship system so that women desperate to earn money for their families don’t have to gamble with their lives.“
More than eight million migrants work in Saudi Arabia, including 1.5 million domestic workers, most of whom send money back home to their families.