JEDDAH, 10 July 2005 — “I have not been paid my salary since January of 2004, and have been jobless and in court for the last nine months. I am mentally and physically sick. I am the only breadwinner in my family. My parents in India are old and sick and depend on me for their livelihood and medical expenses. It is hard to survive in these conditions and I am miserable,” wrote Rizwan Abdul Nabi, an Indian national who is currently in limbo.
Sponsored by Khaled Al-Abbas Al-Telmesani, Abdul Nabi was employed by Najo Forging Factory/Metal Industries Plant in Alkhobar as a welder. When salaries began to be delayed in 2003, he stayed on and kept patient because of his sponsor’s promises to pay eventually.
By January of 2004, however, Abdul Nabi had not received a single riyal. When he resigned in April of that year, he was paid the past due amount for all of 2003 — but nothing for 2004. Encouraged by the partial payment in April, he withdrew his resignation and agreed to continue working, still without receiving a monthly paycheck.
By Aug. 15, 2004, Abdul Nabi was thoroughly fed up and stopped working. He asked to be paid in full immediately and to be sent back home to India.
Six weeks after this, Abdul Nabi was still in the Kingdom and had not received a single riyal for the eight and a half months he had worked in 2004. Left with no other choice, he filed a case against Al-Telmesani in Alkhobar’s Labor Court on Oct. 28 last year. Al-Telmesani, however, delayed things further by having the case transferred to the Dammam Labor Court where his cousin, Sami Al-Telmesani, is a member of the Labor Board Committee.
Five months ago, Dammam Labor Court Judge Salem Mizoud Al-Shamary heard Abdul Nabi’s case and ruled in his favor against his sponsor. Al-Telmesani was ordered to pay Abdul Nabi SR12,008 and provide him with airfare to India immediately. Al-Telmesani immediately filed an appeal with the appeals court in Riyadh which has not yet set a date for the hearing. The waiting time for cases there is often several months.
“I am losing my mental control day by day, am physically sick and in need of treatment. I don’t know what step I should take next. I have nowhere to turn, and I cannot afford a lawyer. I don’t even have money to pay for my transport back and forth to Riyadh,” Abdul Nabi told Arab News.
Desperate to be repatriated and not having received any money for over a year, Abdul Nabi went to Al-Telmesani a few weeks ago to ask for mercy. Al-Telmesani offered him half the amount the judge had specified and an airline ticket home.
“When I accepted, he told me to sign a letter of no-claim written in Arabic as well as other papers dealing with my visa and passport. He told me he would have the money and ticket for me when my visa was sorted out,” he said.
Abdul Nabi now alleges that the money and the ticket never materialized and he is even more desperate now that he has signed a letter of no claim for Al-Telmesani. In real distress, Abdul Nabi contacted the Indian Embassy for help. Last week, the embassy’s Community Welfare Wing contacted Al-Telmesani by fax. The fax said: “Abdul Nabi, an Indian national working under your sponsorship reported to this embassy that he would like to go on final exit with settlement of all his dues and end of service benefits, but you are not allowing him to go nor are you settling his dues and end of service benefits despite several requests. His case was settled in the Labor Court. You have not implemented that court’s judgment so far despite several requests made by him. Instead you have taken his signatures on a paper with the promise to pay SR5,000 and air ticket in settlement, but nothing so far has been given to him. He and his family in India are facing great hardship as they are without a source of income. The Embassy of India would be grateful if you would kindly settle all his dues and repatriate Abdul Nabi on final exit at the earliest as per the Labor Court’s judgment and inform us.”
When contacted, Khaled Al-Telmesani told Arab News by phone: “I never received a fax from the embassy. In fact, Abdul Nabi has been paid everything he is owed. He has signed a no-claim letter to that effect. I owe him nothing.”
Al-Telmesani could give no reason why Abdul Nabi is still in Saudi Arabia — if indeed his dues have been paid and an airline ticket provided for him.
“It’s because he hasn’t paid me anything and hasn’t given me my airline ticket that I am still here. I am not the only one he has done this to. He puts you through the system to break you down and to buy himself time. Then when you are most desperate, he comes back with an offer that is a fraction of what he originally owed you,” Abdul Nabi told Arab News, as he waits with no end in sight.
For the thousands of cases that do make it to Labor Court, there are tens of thousands more that don’t. Abandoned by their sponsors, many caught in similar situations are forced to work illegally to make ends meet. Without a valid iqama, they risk arrest and eventual deportation.
For the sponsor to clear himself of any responsibilities, including financial, toward the “runaway” laborer, he reports him as a runaway and basically forgets about him. Since his laborer “ran away,” the sponsor is spared having to pay the costs of repatriation. Eventually, when the laborer is arrested by the Immigration and Passports Department, he is deported at the expense of the Saudi government or his country’s consulate’s — after spending several weeks in the passports and immigration jail.
