For a long time, we have been hearing about this strange trade. Regulations allow citizens to recruit a maid, a driver, or obtain work visas suitable for workers to run their businesses.
Unfortunately, some people manage to obtain hundreds or even thousands of work visas. They subsequently sell the visas, leaving workers roaming around looking for jobs, while the traders earn easy money by charging fees to workers. We do not know how this can happen and how the government continues to allow the issuance of these visas.
This is one important point that we should be aware of, as it indicates corruption, which harms the reputation of the government and the entire nation. Those who violate such rules should be punished.
The “sponsorship scheme” is a shame on the country. It is not appropriate to persevere with this scheme. Human rights organizations have also demanded cancellation of the sponsorship scheme and apply an alternative. We do not know why we nevertheless stick with it.
The scheme both failed to provide safety against crimes and eliminate cases of escaping workers. The sponsorship system has created a hgue mess. In fact, the scheme has proven it is a complete failure.
The minister of labor recognized the eligibility of expatriates to keep their passports, according to Maatouk Al-Sharif of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR). He acknowledged that the sponsorship scheme failed as it is unable to protect either parties.
I wonder why the study prepared by the NSHR in this regard was not adopted. The study mentioned the creation of a governmental body with legal capacity, to be supervised by the Ministry of Labor, to oversee the conditions of migrant workers and eliminate the traditional sponsor's role. I suggest naming this body the “Affairs of Foreign Workers Authority.”
My demand is not a consequence of the NSHR study, as I already wrote about this form of slave trade in the 1980s.
In order to protect the country, the community and expatriates, we should apply rules that maintain human dignity.
The sponsorship scheme does not achieve that dignity, as individuals do not represent our institutions nor the country. We need to relieve the country and the community of the scheme, provided that there are guaranteed alternatives set out by the Ministry of Labor.
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