JEDDAH, 26 July 2004 — Minister of Labor Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi yesterday accused Human Rights Watch (HRW) of exaggerating the incidence of foreign labor abuse in the Kingdom. He described as “unbalanced “ the New York based human rights group’s report, released on July 15, alleging that foreign workers in Saudi Arabia were “systematically abused and exploited, some of them living in conditions resembling slavery.”

Dr. Al-Gosaibi said limited cases of abuse can happen anywhere in the world and that in its annual reports covering all countries of the world, the HRW usually focuses on what it considers as negative and unusual.

“The report by HRW about the Kingdom highlighted issues related to foreign labor in an unbalanced way that suggests that abuse is the norm rather than being limited to individual cases that can happen in the Kingdom or anywhere else,” the minister said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

Dr. Al-Gosaibi stressed that the report was based on limited cases of individuals hailing from three carefully selected nationalities who work in the Kingdom and that the conclusions drawn by the group did not reflect the true picture of the conditions of expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia.

He said the Kingdom hosts many foreign workers who benefit from the work opportunities available. “Saudi Arabia participates indirectly in the economic growth of the home countries of 7 million workers who remit about SR 60 billion ($16 billion) annually.”

He pointed out that millions of workers come more than once to the Kingdom. “This would not happen had they been abused in the exaggerated way described by the (rights) organization.”

He said that most of the abuse described in the report is criminal under Saudi labor laws. As for the criticism contained in the report regarding cases of religious nature that are directly linked to Islamic teachings such as executions, he said these are derived from Shariah and that executions are carried out in many countries of the world including the United States where the death penalty is applied in several states. “Execution verdicts are opposed by HRW in principle, despite being applied in many countries including the United States. The Kingdom will always adhere to its religion as the main source for laws and regulations,” he said.

Dr. Al-Gosaibi said the real problem in most cases lies in the expatriates’ ignorance of their rights guaranteed by the country’s laws and that the authorities are working to address this problem through educating the workers and also by seeking the cooperation of the countries who have workers in the Kingdom.

“We call upon embassies and different countries (of foreign workers) to cooperate and increase awareness among their nationals brought to the Kingdom.”

He said the labor committees set up to review disputes that arise between the employees and employers handled more than 7,000 cases last year, most of which were filed by expatriate workers and during the current year more than 3,500 cases have been reviewed so far.