Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia constitute nearly 65 percent of the total work force. In the UAE, foreigners account for 70 percent of the population while in Bahrain they are 60 percent. Kuwait alone has one million foreign workers and Oman half a million. Such figures mean that workers must enjoy the full protection of the law and that they are given the rights the labor law prescribes, without exception. We must set a legal minimum wage and there should be no discrimination in the employment process. The practice of preventing foreign workers from getting an exit visa as a way of pressuring them to sign new contracts or relinquish their demands for unpaid salaries at the end of the contract period must stop.
Such is man’s cruelty to man that hardly a day goes by without the newspapers telling us of the humiliation some employers subject their employees to. Embassies are chockfull of citizens whose cases are under review or awaiting repatriation if they are lucky enough to have gotten an exit visa from their sponsor. If, with the support of his embassy, a worker was to go to the labor courts in the Gulf, the difficulty of actually implementing the employment contract and the general tendency for the labor laws to favor the employer mean that it may take the court many months to issue its final verdict. That verdict, though usually in favor of the employee, can be appealed, whereupon the employer takes advantage of the situation and delays the case until the employee’s money runs out and he is forced to return to his country.
Islam prohibits the oppression of workers. If the employer and employee reach a point of total discord, then the sponsor may deport the foreign worker after paying him his dues in full or agree to a transfer of sponsorship. But it is unacceptable for employers to turn transgressions against employees into an art form. Employers cannot fathom the extent of the harm they do to their country by acting like this. As foreign embassies continue to receive complaints from citizens who have been mistreated by their sponsors, the media are soon all over it, publishing the stories and embellishing them if necessary. Matters may become so complicated on the diplomatic front that foreign ministries will be drawn in and the focus will be on the Ministry of the Interior to see what steps it will take to resolve the problem. So instead of profiting from the presence of these foreign workers and turning them into goodwill ambassadors for the Kingdom, we merely provide fodder for hostile campaigns.
Supposing that such plots are being hatched against us, why do we give them the chance to succeed? Why do we brush aside the work of the Supreme Commission for Tourism and deter foreign investors — only to end up driven by the need to prove our good intentions and good manners in order to be accepted?
If we wish to protect our children, our money and our affairs we must treat these workers well and with dignity — if we treat them badly it is no wonder that some of them will turn to crime. We can make those who are not of our religion, learn to love it and desire to enter it.
It may be a better idea to specify the level of education of workers prior to their entrance into the country; so be it. While perhaps harming unskilled laborers, it does guarantee a minimum level of education. The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the UAE has already taken that step, saying work visas would only be issued to applicants who have at least completed secondary education. Since foreign workers aren’t just non-Arabs but include those Arabs whom circumstances have forced to leave their countries, it is incumbent upon us to treat them as we would like to be treated. But to ask them to work in the country and then ignore their rights and their humanity — what could possibly explain such behavior? The rights of workers shouldn’t need to be legislated — our conscience should be our legislation.
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(Suraya Al-Shehry is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)
