France tries Saudi artist for modern-day slavery

A Saudi abstract painter whose work has been exhibited in the Louvre is on trial in France charged with enslaving three employees.

Fifty-one-year-old Shalimar Sharbatly has previously been sentenced to three years in prison but has never served time in prison because she fled to Saudi Arabia. She is currently on trial in absentia.

According to media reports, during her stay in Paris where she owns an apartment, the Saudi artist “enslaved many domestic workers”, she is accused of human trafficking, concealed work and employment of a foreigner without a work permit.

The artist is said to have hired women in a “fragile social situation”, including three Eritrean women whom she brought over from Jeddah, aged between 33 and 55. According to Le Figaro, the women “lived in fear” working 11-15 hours a day “without rest or leave”. They were housed in unbearable conditions, poorly fed and “subject to the incessant demands of their boss and her mood swings, they had to be ready to satisfy Shalimar Sharbatly’s demands at any time of day or night,” the paper added.

Their passports were also confiscated by their boss. When two staff members managed to recover their documents, they fled in December 2018. The third was later found by police.

It is thought that Sharbatly hired 11 staff in total but only declared two. Her lawyers say employees were hired through Saudi agencies and were, therefore, subject to Saudi employment laws. They added that complaints against the artist had come in an effort by staff to gain leave to remain in France.

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