JEDDAH, 21 July 2004 — Following the report on the intent of the National Society for Human Rights to look into alleged abuses against expatriate workers, Arab News has received a flood of phone calls, letters and e-mails from people enquiring on how to contact the NSHR to report such cases.

The main office of the Society is at the Babtain Heritage and Culture Center in Riyadh, and it is working on establishing offices in Jeddah and Dammam, according to its official spokesperson Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar.

“We are open from nine in the morning to nine in the evening and anyone can walk in to report their complaints,” he told Arab News. The phone number is (01)4872626, the fax is (01)4872707, and the address P.O. Box 1881, Riyadh 111321.

They are also working on establishing a website soon. “We have already received more than 400 complaints and there is a dedicated committee that meets every day to answer and review the complaints,” he said.

The Kingdom’s newly formed human rights group issued a statement in response to a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch which came out last week and alleged that foreign workers in Saudi Arabia were “systematically abused and exploited, some of them living in conditions resembling slavery.”

The report stated: “Discrimination against women in the Kingdom compounds the plight of female workers, some of whom have been victims of sexual abuse and forced confinement.”

The HRW said it conducted most of the interviews for the report in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines with workers who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia.

It said it was denied permission to carry out field research in the Kingdom even though a delegation was invited to Saudi Arabia last year for talks with officials.

In the statement, Hajjar said the association “has not received any of the complaints cited in the HRW report,” but he did not rule out the possibility of worker abuses in the Kingdom, saying, “It is not surprising that there would be problems, whether between workers and employers, or between people in general, similar to exploitation and rape anywhere in the world. The important thing is to strive to resolve them and prevent their recurrence.”

He told Arab News that he had seen only part of the report and could not comment until they receive the full text. In the meantime, he said the Society was working with the Ministry of Labor and the workers to address their complaints.

“The government is also working on resolving some of the shortcomings in the status of labor and employees including the establishment of a ministry especially for labor and revision of the labor and employees systems.”

The Society urges all sectors and committees concerned with human rights to cooperate on resolving problems and avoid escalating them in a way that does not serve the employees or the service and production agencies, whether in Saudi Arabia or other countries.