RIYADH, 8 August 2004 — Rarely does criticism, especially imported criticism, provoke more than impulsive repudiation and denunciation. And in the case of us Saudis, it has become even harder to accept fair criticism since ill-motivated disparagements and deceitful scapegoating of the whole culture have overshadowed any sincere attempts to draw attention to deficiencies. Nevertheless, the reaction to the recent report by the Human Rights Watch organization was indeed exaggerated in its rejection. Perhaps the report went overboard in some of its accusations, but that should not lead us to deny any related weaknesses, especially those found in our Labor Law.
It does not require more than living in a local household which employs a maid and a driver to recognize the potential for abuse by a domestic employer. The contrast between the wealthier, relatively more-educated employer living in his home country and the foreign servant immediately places the former in a much more advantageous position. Yet where the Labor Law was supposed to intervene, it actually tilted the scale even further in favor of the domestic sponsor.
The most striking shortcoming of the Labor Law is its disappearance as soon as the servant walks into the sponsor’s home. Behind this is the strict notion of familial privacy that Saudi culture so uncompromisingly guards. This sense of privacy however, is to an extent delusional since the sponsor tacitly forfeits a measure of it when he recruits a foreigner into his home. The house, although still home to the sponsor, is now a workplace to the foreigner and therefore the otherwise inapplicable Labor Law is present.
Ought to be present, that is. As the law lacks any practical procedures for ensuring the sponsor’s compliance, it is not surprising that working conditions become by and large subject to his whims. Working hours are readjusted to suit the needs of the employer; job descriptions are redefined to introduce tasks not originally mentioned in the contract, and compensation is paid as and when the sponsor feels like doing so.
Unfortunately, over the years many families have grown accustomed to exploiting this situation. It seems to some that normal working hours are 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. A driver usually also means a security guard, a gardener, a construction worker, and a host of other unrelated chores. A maid has an even broader job that basically caters for any imaginable errand around the house.
The Labor Law does not include a strict and clear definition of the duties required of a household servant nor does it provide a channel for workers to protest orders to work unpaid overtime. Of course, a worker can decide to leave and return home although this option is unattainable to most given that they have accumulated great debts back home to pay the headhunter who initially recruited them. This practice of paying the headhunter is obviously not a fault of the Saudi Labor Law; even so it must be taken into consideration if the intention is to produce a fair law.
Moreover these and other weaknesses provide the chance for sponsors to translate their own responsibilities into increased hardship to their employees. A clear example is the loss of the visa as a result of the worker not returning from vacation, or the pledge to surrender the worker following an official request. Obviously, with the absence of proper controls, some sponsors understand these responsibilities as an invitation for withholding pay and unlawful confinement.
The Human Rights Watch report was unsurprisingly much broader in scope and focused mostly on grave abuses that are outright criminal — i.e. unlawful confinement, sexual assault — and therefore do not normally fall within the jurisdiction of the Labor Law. In addition, some of the accusations were religiously biased such as those that spoke against tolerating any deviant religious practices by foreign workers in the holy city of Makkah. On the other hand, the report details the weaknesses currently present in the Labor Law and alleges that exploitation by sponsors has become systematic. On a more positive note, however, many Saudi columnists raised serious concerns about the conditions brought to light by the report and called for action by the Ministry of Labor.
It should not be necessary to say that the Ministry of Labor must become more involved in the relationship between sponsor and worker. Suggestions abound concerning the specific arrangements for this involvement, such as the idea of requiring sponsors to deposit the workers’ salaries in special bank accounts that are opened immediately upon recruitment. Another good idea would be to hire female inspectors who would make random unannounced checks on houses to check for compliance with the Labor Law.
The implementation of these suggestions will unquestionably complicate the process of recruiting foreign workers. Champions of privacy will vigorously oppose any attempts at governmental incursion into their homes. What we need to understand, nonetheless, is that the ability to hire a foreign worker is not a right, but rather a contractual agreement that comes with accountability and responsibility as well as with benefits.
(Abdullah Zeini Jefri is a Saudi banker and writer, and can be reached at [email protected].)
