An expatriate friend working and living legally in the country conveyed to me the suffering of many like him who sometimes find themselves unable to move freely from one place to another to attend to personal business. Why? Because they risk being caught by the police on the pretext of being present at a site away from their place of work.
We agree that these people should stick to the work they originally came to do and stay in the designated town or place of work. But we should also expect to see these individuals in other places attending to a family business or visiting a relative or friend.
Why prevent them from socializing and building closer family and brotherly ties with people in other places? Why should a worker carrying a valid iqama (residence permit) and on his way to visit a friend in another town be arrested and sent to the deportation center on the grounds that he was found in a place away from his original work place? Should the life of foreign worker be entirely devoted to their sponsors?
These individuals have human needs just like other people and they need to go out shopping or visiting family members or friends. Such human considerations should not be ignored. However, we must all work to respect the law.
Efforts by the passport police in tracking and arresting individuals who have overstayed their visa and violated the country’s immigration laws should be commended. There has to be, however, some allowance for movement about the Kingdom for personal business.
Complaints by some expatriates might be exaggerated, but there is no justification to prevent a foreign worker from moving freely in the street or traveling to another place to visit a family member or a friend. Residence and work laws are not that rigid. There must be greater understanding among the law enforcement agencies in instances where a worker has to be at a place other than that of his work or residence.
— Nasser Al-Yahyawi/Al-Nadwa
Sorry, you are too tall to enter
A friend told once me a strange story of how we treat our children. While she was waiting to enter an amusement park in Riyadh, she noticed a number of small boys crying and begging their mothers to let them in. To her shock, the mothers went inside the park with their daughters and left the boys unattended.
She inquired of a 13-year-old boy why he was left outside. She learned they were denied entry because the guard manning the gate told them they were taller than a metal bar mounted on the gate to measure children’s height. Any boy found to be taller than the bar is not allowed to accompany their families and has to wait outside. Girls are exempted from standing beside the pole regardless of their height.
When my friend approached the guard and asked about the age limit for boys, she was told there was no limit. Admission is decided by the bar. She then asked what are the boys supposed to do finding themselves alone with no member of the family to look after them. The guard said they should wait until a car is sent from home to pick them up or wait outside until their mothers come out to take them home.
The guard then got angry. “Don’t you know the regulations governing the work of amusement parks? Why do you insist on breaking the them?”
Going back to the depressed boys, she heard one saying he wished he were a girl so as he could enter. Another said amusement parks in Jeddah and Dammam allow boys his age to accompany their families.
It is indeed a tragedy seeing boys become so desperate they wish they could change their sex to be able to enjoy their holidays like other children.
Do rules governing entry into amusement parks differ from one place to another? Where can these children go during the long summer months if they are denied permission to such places? The only choice left to them is either stay at homes with the maids and computer games or venture out into the street where they can expose themselves to untold dangers.
28 July 2002
