JEDDAH, 27 February 2006 — An unknown number of expatriate women have fallen prey to a scam that finds them in the Kingdom without a residency permit and with no way of returning home. Fearing arrest for not having a valid iqama, many turn to the blackmarket where a kind of solution to their problem is available — at a price.
Rahima and her husband Abdul Sattar had not seen one another for over two years. Abdul Sattar had come to Saudi Arabia to work as an accountant and had left his wife behind in the Philippines. Being apart for one anniversary too many, Rahima asked that she be allowed to join her husband near Taif.
Through a friend, Abdul Sattar found a Saudi who, for SR6,000, was willing to sponsor Rahima and provide her with a visa to work as a domestic helper in the Kingdom. When she arrived at King Abdul Aziz International Airport, her husband and her sponsor met her.
“I gave my sponsor my passport because he needed it in order to get an iqama for me. We paid him the rest of the money and then he disappeared. He was supposed to show me his house and introduce me to his wife the next day but he didn’t. I waited and waited and then when we tried to find him through my husband’s friend, we realized that no one really knew anything about him,” she told Arab News.
At the moment, Rahima has been in the Kingdom three months without her passport, without an iqama and without a job. “I am afraid to leave my house because I don’t have an iqama so I can’t work. I am afraid I will be deported, which I understand means I will sit in jail for a long time. Although I am happy to be with my husband, things are tough because his income alone is not enough to support both of us,” Rahima said.
She has contacted the consulate but was told there was little that could be done to help her. Fearing arrest, she has not had the nerve to report the problem to the police.
Abdul Sattar had an idea that Rahima’s passport had been sold on the blackmarket in Jeddah and began to ask his friends if they knew where he should begin looking. He was surprised when he heard that a thriving trade existed in forged documents in one particular part of Balad and that for SR1,500, the problem could be solved.
Within a few days, Rahima’s new green iqama was in her hands. “I was told not to use it except when really necessary, and to avoid the police. I thought having this would give me peace of mind, but it doesn’t because deep down inside, I know it is a fake. Sometimes I wonder if my sponsor really did get a real iqama issued in my name and it is somewhere out there, circulating on the blackmarket along with my passport. I imagine a real iqama and passport would be worth a few thousand riyals to someone somewhere,” said Rahima.
She knows that there is no solution to her predicament in sight, unless her sponsor shows up. “I have a feeling that this is all going to end very badly,” she said.
