There are many foreigners, Muslim and non-Muslim, working here in the Kingdom. In the normal course of events, some inevitably die while they are here; and with death comes problems concerning burial arrangements.
If death is due to natural causes, there is probably not much difficulty in having the body buried either here or sent back to the deceased’s home country. The real problem, however, is when death is accidental in which both the employer and the family of the deceased endure a great deal of mental anguish and bureaucracy.
Saudi employers face the daunting task of having to get documents in order for expediting burial. That, however, is not so simple; they must check with several government and other bodies — the police, the governorate, the deceased’s embassy and the hospital morgue where the body is being held. Each of these has its own procedures and routines which naturally result in a great waste of time and energy. Some embassies even impose fees for processing papers.
This problem has been repeatedly raised with officials and the press writes regularly about it. Unfortunately, there seems to be no imminent solution from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs or from the Shoura Council.
A very complicated problem for employers is payment of diyya — blood money — in deaths resulting from traffic accidents. Some of the deceased’s next of kin insist that the party causing the accident pay the diyya. At the same time, the law obliges the employer to repatriate the body at his expense.
Why should the employer be obliged to pay repatriation costs if the diyya goes in full to the heirs? Why not oblige the next of kin who received the blood money to pay for repatriating the body to the deceased’s home country? The employer has had trouble enough running from one department to another trying to get all the required documents, stamps and permissions.
What is still more amazing is that the authorities in the Kingdom refuse to apply the provisions of the employment contract which stipulate that the worker agrees, in the event of death, that his or her body be buried in the Kingdom and that, if the next of kin insists on the body being repatriated to the home country, the next of kin should bear half the cost of transporting the body.
Contracts were made to be honored. Suppose a company hired 30 workers and half of them died in an accident. Can you imagine the financial losses that the employer would incur in preparing documents and repatriating bodies? The cost would surely exceed SR300,000 at the least — not to mention other financial losses resulting from a shortage of workers and the need to issue new work visas.
I sincerely hope the officials at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and members of the Shoura Council will move to address these problems and find a solution acceptable to all parties.
Arab News From the Local Press 3 November 2003
