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Rizana Nafeek has just been wrongfully executed in Saudi Arabia. She was a Sri Lankan domestic worker who was sent to Saudi Arabia when she was still a minor. Assurances for her release were made as late as November 2011, and despite the Sri Lankan Government's and Amnesty's pleas for clemency made this week, the Saudi government has shown that it does not protect or value the rights of domestic workers and children.In January 2012, Colombo High Court sentenced the two foreign employment sub-agents in Sri Lanka for sending Rizana to work as a minor in 2005. The agents were sentenced to two years imprisonment and ordered to pay her family 60,000 Rs each. Less than a year later on January 9, 2013, Rizana was executed.From the Lanka Solidarity petition on her case: "We note especially that per the Convention on Domestic Workers and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Rizana cannot legally be sentenced to death; Saudi Arabia is a party to both the former document, which protects domestic workers, and the latter document, which forbids the death penalty and life sentences for crimes committed by those under the age of 18....On May 22, 2005, Rizana Nafeek was arrested for the alleged murder of a four-month-old child under her care in Saudi Arabia. In June 2007, the High Court in Dawadmi sentenced Rizana to death. Her execution order was stayed pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. However, in October 2010, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence. Rizana remains in prison to this day, and as soon as King ‘Abdullah Bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz of Saudi Arabia ratifies her sentence, she may be executed.Rizana was 17 years old at the time of the incident. After training with Sri Lanka’s Bureau of Foreign Employment, she began working for a family in Saudi Arabia. Her training did not include child care, and she was not informed in advance that child care would be among her duties. Nevertheless, her employers instructed her to look after a four-month-old infant. Tragically, on May 22, 2005, the child died while under Rizana’s care.From the time of her arrest to the order for her execution, Rizana’s case has been subject to multiple irregularities and injustices...."Rizana went to Saudi Arabia as a child in order to help her family generate income, and she never returned to Sri Lanka before her execution. May her family in Sri Lanka find peace in time and with the support of those who are willing to speak up against this grave injustice.Lanka Solidarity hopes that this tragic case will prompt meaningful action to improve procedures for sending Sri Lankan migrant workers to the Middle East, as well as their working conditions and assurances once they are there.source: https://www.facebook.com/LankaSolidarity