The sponsorship rules that exist in Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries that govern the relationship between employer and employee are meant to protect the rights of both parties. However, over a period of time unscrupulous employers or sponsors have taken advantage of a few gaps in the rules and turned things to their advantage.
Such abuses would not be noticeable were it for not some heralded cases of blatant violations of employee rights by unscrupulous employers. In most cases, the victims are from Asian and African countries with very little education and lack a full awareness of their rights in the host country. Thus they are mercilessly exploited by nasty sponsors. One such case that came to my attention was of Gul Nawaz, an Indian living in a coastal city of Saudi Arabia. Frustrated by doors repeatedly slamming shut in his face when he presented his predicament, he turned to the only other human being he could contact and sent me the following which has been edited for clarity:
“Dear Sir. I could not find anybody nearby except your good self at the worst time of [times] in my life in the kingdom. It started during the grace period given by the Custodian of the two holy mosques to regularise the status of employees. Many companies failed to follow the process and make the necessary transfers of employees, on questionable status, to other potential employers in time because of the abnormally heavy workload at the passport departments throughout the country then. While the passport office and labour court procedures continued [even] after the expiry of the grace period, my case was unfortunately not among them. My sponsor took 20,000 riyal (Dh19,580) from me as a condition to give my passport and related papers for transfer. Once he had received the money, he filed a huroob [runaway] case against me and provided the authorities with my residency details without my knowledge. When my would-be sponsor tried to process the transfer, he was told by the authorities that I was listed as a runaway and therefore not eligible for transfer of my services to a new sponsor. When I was told this, I immediately contacted the old sponsor. He told me to pay more to have the huroob issue scratched. I did that, but even after receiving the money he neither cancelled the huroob nor did he return my passport. He did not answer my phone calls for a couple of days until he called me, asking for more money to return the passport. I paid him again and as before, he did not keep his word and disappeared. My residency expired 16 months ago and I failed to get it renewed, despite paying my sponsor everything I had and even had to borrow money from others. Today, I have become an illegal resident without any fault of mine. Dear Sir. I cannot move anywhere and cannot work. I am unemployed for the last one year.”
Similar ordeal
“Being a Muslim, I had preferred [working] in the kingdom because I wanted to be near the holy places. I was also looking forward to an opportunity to bring my family over for a visit as they kept begging me. Can you please consider my situation? A practising Muslim from India in the kingdom without a passport, without money, [living on] borrowed accommodation, helpless, with an old, bedridden mother, wife and three children back home crying, not for money but only for me to be back home with them. [To make matters worse] my friend is going to leave Saudi Arabia shortly and I will have to vacate his room. I will face great problems. I am a postgraduate and in a critical situation without any fault of mine. I want to go back to my country as soon as possible. Or else, I may be die soon because I am losing my mental stability.I am not seeking any monetary help, but only for assistance to return home at the earliest so that I can see my family members, whom I had met for the last time three years ago. I contacted the [Indian] embassy. They advised me to wait until the end of Eid holidays. I met dozens of my countrymen at the Indian consulate who were stranded in the kingdom and were in a similar ordeal. There must be a law against such unscrupulous sponsors ...” — G.N.
Indeed I will. These people came to Saudi Arabia to earn an honest livelihood. Along the way, they fell prey to greedy sponsors and ended up in deep debt. They have hardly anyone to speak for them. Their dream of bringing their family over for pilgrimage at the holy places has also been cruelly crushed, along with the pain of failure and the loss of faith in humanity.
Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
