The scenes are in Arabic depicting how cruelly a female maid is treated in an Arab household. Another scene shows a man being shouted at by his Arab boss because the man is complaining about a delayed salary. In all of these scenes, there's a part showing the anguish on the workers' faces as they ruminate about their sad fate.

These scenes are part of a series of touching tv ads about the plight of migrant workers in the Arab world. The adverts are currently being shown over Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) channels.

(Because my knowledge of the Arabic language is almost nil, I can only watch and conjur my own interpretation of the scenes.)

Today, I read an article about it in an article written by Hassna'a Mokhtar for Arab News.

The article reads: The campaign, entitled Rahma, is part of Full Stop Advertising’s corporate social responsibility drive.

Rahma means 'mercy' in Arabic.

Says Kaswara Al-Khatib, managing director of Full Stop Advertising: “We wanted to give people something to think and talk about. Workers are fragile people, and in Islam we must treat them with mercy and compassion."

Mideast Youth also wrote a beautiful article about the ads and it was from this site where I found the Youtube videos below. The English translations for the two ads were also from Mideast Youth website; one ad was loosely translated for me by an office mate.


Translation:
“Put it. Don’t you understand me? Put the rice! DAMNIT! Go, get out of my face.”
“What’s wrong with her, doesn’t she understand?”
“She’s imbicile.”


Loose translations (made by a Saudi officemate):

First scene:
"Rahma, Rahma! Come here! What is this! Do you see this?! (shows the ironed guthra to the female household).
Do you call this ironed?! It's like your face!

Second scene:
"Baba (Arabic term of respect for an old man), why is there no salary yet? We haven't had our salaries for two months now?"
"I don't have money! What can I do?! Some people are not salaried for four months! You didn't get yours for two months, and you're already complaining!"

Third scene:
"Get out of the road, stupid!

Fourth scene:
"Abdulrahman, I wish to ask your permission to visit my daughter in the hospital."
"During office hours?! Work. Work! Go visit your daughter after you finished your work here! Am I responsible to your family's problem?!"


Translation:
“You’re not done yet?! You’re not sleeping until the house is crystal clean, understood?”

At the end of each advert, there's this line in Arabic: "If you show no mery, no mercy shall be given to you by God."

Touching!