UNAIZA, 14 July 2006 — Farmers across the Kingdom are complaining that foreign farm laborers are abandoning their jobs and absconding en masse leaving Saudi farmers in the lurch with no one to man their farms, reported the Al-Watan newspaper.

Farm owners say they are suffering huge financial losses with much of their crops going to waste as laborers run away.

The farmers also say that government rules allow laborers to travel around the Kingdom without the approval of their sponsors and so many tend to leave and work illegally at other farms where they are paid better.

Saleh Al-Duaiji owns a date farm, which contains over 500 date trees and other crops. “I’ve had five workers leave my farm recently, in spite of the fact that I pay them good money and provide a place for them to live,” he said.

Al-Duaiji says he has now been forced to hire illegal overstayers to take care of his farm otherwise he would see his crops destroyed. “I can’t avoid this because the harvest season is drawing near. I’ve told the Passport Department about the workers absconding and hope they get arrested soon,” he said.

Speaking about a worker who left a farm belonging to a relative of his, Al-Duaiji said, “After more than one year the Passport Department arrested him.

The officials at the Passport Department called my cousin for money for an air-ticket to deport him or SR2,000 to cancel the report he filed if he wants the worker back.

“My cousin became upset and asked why should he pay to deport a man who ran away and why should he have to pay the Passport Department to take him back, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Many farmers have petitioned the Ministry of Labor for help and in a letter outlined the problems they face when workers abscond. Seeking justice, farmers say that workers have the right to complain to the labor office when they are mistreated but then farmers end up paying money to the authorities when their workers abscond.

Othman Al-Khulaifi, a farmer, said that in spite of two of his workers recently escaping he still has not bothered to complain to the Passport Department because he knows that the passport office will ask him for money to deport them.

“I think it is about time the government introduced a law banning farm laborers from traveling inside the Kingdom without the approval of their sponsors. Before the approval was canceled no one dared to escape, but now we hear about workers leaving farms all the time.”