JEDDAH — Amal Khedar, a Saudi mother of four, has been living in Jordan for the past 11 years, and she says that it’s about time for her homeland to implement reforms to the labor-sponsorship system.
“In Jordan the sponsorship system was updated in the past few years and we have a similar system now in place as the one being suggested by Saudi authorities,” she said, referring to ongoing discussions among Saudi authorities about changing a system that many see as broken.
“(In Jordan) we as the employers are responsible for paying an initial sum to the Ministry of Labor and providing our identification and contact information. Then we write a detailed explanation of the type of worker we want and private companies draw up the contract.”
Under the current system, Saudis seeking to hire foreign workers are the sponsors of those workers. They shoulder the burden, expense and risk. If a maid’s performance isn’t satisfactory, there is little option but to simply send her back to her home country and write off the costs.
One of the proposals moving among the circles of authority is to use contracted companies to become labor pools. These private contractors would become the sponsors of the workers and then provide these workers to citizens. This is how the system works in Jordan.
Khedar said that because the private companies have already recruited a number of various foreign laborers, employers are able to hire a worker with them on the spot compared to the long 60-120 day wait currently being experienced by sponsors in Saudi Arabia, who must go through recruitment agencies, the Ministry of Labor and sometimes the consulates of the country from where the workers are recruited. These workers are given a three-month probationary period within which either party in the working relationship can withdraw from the agreement. In the event of dissatisfaction, the foreign worker simply goes back into the labor pool of the agency and the employer is provided another worker to try out.
“Because the sponsorship law and system is so organized we rarely see the scenario of runaway workers,” said Khedar. “This has eliminated the ‘Maid Mafia’ phenomenon that has become a major issue for both Saudi authorities and the individual sponsors in Saudi Arabia.”
The problem of runaway maids in Saudi Arabia has given way to black labor market syndicates who provide maids at lower costs under the table. Saudis often hire these maids — even in some cases paying them higher salaries than legal employers — in order to avoid the complications and costs of using the current system.
Over the past few years a number of GCC states have been modernizing or are in the process of studying ways of updating their sponsorship laws governing foreign laborers.
Qatar, like Saudi Arabia, has also recently started to look into ways of amending the regulations governing sponsorship with the launch of the revisions expected soon, according to Dr. Arindam Basu, a research consultant at the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) in Doha.
“In my opinion the current (Qatari) Labor Law is fine but the sponsorship law needs to undergo considerable revision due in part that it is quite outdated, being first drawn up in 1963,” he said.
Basu added that since the NHRC rarely receives complaints of human rights violations from sponsors most of the discrepancies relating to the subject of sponsorship have been made by foreign laborers who have been complaining of two major problems.
“The bulk of the concerns we have been receiving fall into the category of ‘exits’ and ‘releases,’” he said, adding that the dilemma of “exits” is related to sponsors who simply won’t allow workers to leave Qatar and return to their home country despite the honorable settlement of the employment contract. The problem with “releases” occurs when sponsors refuse to permit employees to change sponsors, thus forcing the workers to be employed in any type of condition the sponsor deems fit. (Similar problems exist in Saudi Arabia.)
In 2005, the UAE started to allow workers to more easily switch sponsors and lifted a rule that prohibited workers from re-entry within six months.
Speaking on the impact the changes in sponsorship laws throughout the GCC has made and how the decision to amend the law in Saudi Arabia would affect the Kingdom, Abdullah Murad, a lawyer and partner of Fallata & Murad Law Firm in Jeddah said that the changes throughout the GCC have all been for the better and that the switch of sponsorship from individuals to private companies in the Kingdom would prove to be beneficial for both Saudi employers and foreign employees.
“I don’t see anything but positive aspects of changing the sponsorship law and it seems to me that it would assist in remedying the complaints by workers concerning human rights issues, as well,” he said.
Murad added that an alteration in the current law would also create opportunities to move employees between companies and help foreign workers find suitable employment and do away with the need for Saudi sponsors to be responsible for their worker’s iqamas, in the end saving them both time and money.
However, owners of recruitment offices as well as some citizens in the Kingdom have mixed reactions to the news of the proposed idea of a change in the law. “A change would help in combating a number of problems related to domestic workers and their Saudi sponsors but would also create another problem for owners of recruitment agencies if private companies were established,” said Abdulrahman Al-Aqib, general manager of NAFA Employment & Recruitment Office in Riyadh. “The only way the change would be welcomed on both sides is if the government would allow the recruitment offices already doing business in the Kingdom to become the government-approved private companies.”
However, other recruitment offices are reacting to the announcement with little surprise. “I don’t think that a change in the law switching the sponsor from individuals to private companies would have any major affect on recruitment offices,” said Bandar Sadiq Al-Madani, manager of the Diplomacy Recruitment Office in Jeddah.
“To be quite honest going back as far as five years, we have been receiving notices from the government stating that they intend to change the sponsorship regulations making private companies liable for sponsorship,” he said.
Al-Madani also said that under the new regulation there would be a 90-day probationary period added, like the system in Jordan, to allow sponsors to test the worker to see if the employee can properly perform the duties of the job. However, if there is any problem and the sponsor or the employee were unsatisfied. The rejection of employment should be filed with the embassy governing the worker and should be signed by both parties allowing for the return of the worker back to the recruitment company in which case an exit visa could be ordered and the employee deported.
Samir Bedwelan, a Saudi from Yanbu whose driver ran away only later to be found working in Riyadh, said that he thinks that foreign workers should have to sign a form stating that they would not seek employment elsewhere and also pay a deposit upon entering the Kingdom, which would cover costs of deportation if the worker was to runaway or work for other sponsors.
“The deposit would be returned to the foreign worker on top of their salary on completing the employment contract amicably,” he said.
Still there are also citizens that refuse to be sold on the idea saying that it just wouldn’t work. “I think that changing the law is a good idea and I applaud the Saudi government for taking the initiative to improve the situation for sponsors as well as foreign laborers, but I don’t feel that such a system would be successful because of the problem of foreigners gaining access to the Kingdom through the issuance of Umrah or Haj visas,” said 69-year-old, Taher Redwan, adding that he thinks it would still be difficult for government authorities to control foreigners working illegally despite the change in regulations or alteration in sponsorship.
