JEDDAH, 5 June 2005 — Saudi Arabia yesterday disagreed with a US State Department report accusing Riyadh of human trafficking, and said the report was “neither objective nor impartial” as it ignored abuses in the United States and Europe.
“We are surprised by the contents of the report, and we disagree with most of what has been mentioned,” said Prince Turki ibn Mohammed ibn Saud Al-Kabeer, undersecretary for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry.
“The rules and regulations of Saudi Arabia prohibit exploitation and trafficking of people. Our religion also does not accept this,” the Reuters news agency quoted the official as saying.
Suhaila Hammad, a member of the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR), blasted the report and said it was “neither objective nor impartial,” because it ignored human rights violations in the United States itself and Europe.
She charged that the timing of its release suggested Washington was trying to “cover up the scandal over the desecration of the Holy Qur’an by US interrogators at the detention camp in Guantanamo.”
The State Department downgraded Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the lowest level of compliance in an annual report on Friday that evaluates efforts worldwide to fight trafficking of around 800,000 people a year.
Victims in the Gulf region were mostly from Asia and were generally forced to be domestic servants and laborers but also included women prostitutes and boy camel jockeys as young as three, according to the US report.
Prince Turki said that violations of Saudi regulations may occur — as anywhere else in the world — but the government had taken steps to help bring offenders to justice and planned to introduce new rules for foreign workers soon.
Efforts to combat human trafficking included the establishment of a non-governmental organization, the National Society of Human Rights, which was looking into cases of reported abuse, he said.
Abdullah Abou-Alsamh, a senior member of the National Society for Human Rights, dismissed the report as having no factual basis and an exaggeration.
“There is no such thing as human trafficking in Saudi Arabia because slavery has been outlawed for decades here. Even if we suppose that there is human trafficking from Africa or the Far East coming through Saudi Arabia, the minute these enslaved people are identified as such at the entry points, or they seek the police help once here, they are immediately set free and those engaged in this criminal activity are punished,” Abou-Alsamh told Arab News.
“I think the US State Department based its report on rumors and biased opinions,” he added. “In general these laborers have access to the proper authorities and can regain their rights. The labor offices of the Ministry of Labor are set to help in any kind of labor disputes or abuses by either side, and there is always the National Society for Human Rights,” he added.
