L.A. Now Live: Saudi princess charged with human trafficking

On Thursday a Saudi princess accused of human trafficking posted $5 million bail and was freed.

The princess, 42-year-old Meshael Alayban, is one of six wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud.

Join us at 9 a.m. as we discuss the case and human trafficking with Times reporter Paloma Esquivel.

Prosecutors said Alayban “did unlawfully deprive and violate the personal liberty” of a Kenyan woman by forcing her to cook, clean, do laundry and perform other household chores for meager pay.

Authorities are investigating whether four other servants working for the princess’ family were also victimized.

The case was met with shock and outrage in Irvine, a city famous as a melting pot of many cultures. But experts and law enforcement officials said that in Saudi Arabia, the servant’s working arrangement is fairly commonplace.

“The people who are hired as such think they’re getting a benefit from it .... They’re getting a roof over their head. They’re getting fed,” said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of homeland security investigations in Los Angeles and southern Nevada. “On the face of it they think they’re getting treated well. So they don’t think of themselves as victims.”

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at UCLA, said servants are treated so poorly for so long “that they become completely docile, the Saudi employer cannot imagine them as anyone who has free will, so they comfortably view them as part of the baggage and bring them to the U.S. or Europe.”