text: (CNN) -- A friend of mine who works in advertising recently got called for a job in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Knowing I have traveled in the Middle East, she asked me if she should take it. I said it might be interesting in terms of cultural anthropology, but don't expect to enjoy yourself. The social and legal restrictions on women are rampant. 
  
  In the end she turned it down, and one big reason was her trepidation about how she would be treated. 
  
  Western women work in the notoriously misogynistic Gulf States, mostly in PR for governments and doing business with multinationals. But the biggest contingent of foreign women working in those countries -- the millions of Bangladeshi, Indonesian and Filipino servants -- are off the radar. The events of this past week should be regarded as their, and the native women's, silent scream. 
  
  Marte Deborah Dalelv, an interior designer working in Qatar, reported being raped last year while on a business trip to Dubai. Although her alleged attacker was arrested and jailed, so was she. A court sentenced her to 16 months in prison for having unlawful sex. 
  
  World outrage at the Kafkaesque situation apparently provoked the Dubai potentate Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to "pardon" Dalelv. She gets her passport back and is free to go home. She told reporters in Dubai she planned to get out soon. 
  
  The incident should be a wake-up call for any woman, and any man who cares about women, working in or doing business with the petro-cash soaked Gulf States. 