There are two courses of action when faced with intense backlash for your opinion—you can either apologize or double down on your stance.
A Kuwaiti Instagram star slammed for criticizing new laws meant to improve conditions for Filipino domestic workers decided to go all-in after a video she posted dubbed her a “slave owner” with personal views better suited for “the dark ages.”
Makeup artist Sondos Alqattan posted a video to explain her outrage that her “servants” now must be given a day off every week and are allowed to keep their passports. The Kuwaiti beauty expert has since pulled the video from her account, but the Daily Mail outlines some of the more troubling lines from the video broadcast to her Instagram audience of over 2.3 million followers.
“How can you have a servant at home who keeps their own passport with them? What’s worse is they have one day off every week. If they run away and go back to their country, who will refund me? Honestly I disagree with this law. I don’t want a Filipino maid any more.”
An estimated 660,000 domestic migrant workers live in Kuwait, according to the Guardian, many of them of Filipino descent. In May, worker reforms were introduced after months of strained relations between the two countries. These new laws removed a three-month ban for workers from the Philippines to travel to these countries seeking employment after a 29-year-old Filipino maid was murdered and stuffed into a freezer in an abandoned apartment.
Alqattan on Tuesday posted a written response to the backlash in which she states that she’s “never mistreated or degraded” an employee in any way but rejects people calling her beliefs, and inner beauty, into question.
Her comment on the Instagram post reads “Don’t judge a person without full understanding of the situation. Just because you don’t agree, doesn’t mean that you’re right!”
Migrante International, an advocacy group for overseas Filipino workers, is demanding sponsors drop Alqattan from her lucrative endorsement deals. The 27-year-old has worked with companies such as Max Factor and MAC Cosmetics in the past. According to the BBC, several beauty companies with previous ties to Alqattan have moved to distance themselves.
