Rizana Nafeek

Did she look back on the family shack,

as she departed for the Middle East?

Was her passport doctored? Probably -

as she sought a better life, at least.

Working in Saudi as a housemaid

just as thousands of Asians do

the baby she was looking after

sadly died as she fed him, it’s true.

But that doesn’t make it murder -

not without a fair trial, for sure

often though that’s not possibly so

when you are foreign and poor.

Beaten with belt and heinously,

denied her rights as the accused -

it was murder they said and guilty she pled

while under-represented and confused.

You can’t confess, while under duress

or even understand, without a translator.

No post mortem for the child - my suspicions run wild -

but I still can’t imagine, the interrogator.

One more question, I just can’t let go:

at the time of the “crime” - was she only seventeen?

This much we know, for certain though,

Nafeek was be-headed, in 2013.