Pak Sahafat – The reports tell about the miserable condition of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and the abuse of them by brokers. Many African women who travel to the Persian Gulf countries to work as domestic workers live in dire conditions.
According to the International group of Pak Sahafat news agency, “France 24” channel published a report about the plight and miserable situation of a large number of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, who are forced to work in difficult conditions and are often abused by Saudi employers.
According to this report, migrant workers in Saudi Arabia are trapped in a system that ties their labor rights to their employers.
Pimps are unknown figures who operate on Facebook and pretend to help desperate migrant women escape from their employers in order to find better jobs. These people actually target and exploit the most vulnerable people.
A video posted on YouTube in late 2022 shows 12 immigrant women standing together in a room. Migrant women ask for help in Swahili. One of the women in this video says that they were trapped by pimps after fleeing from their employers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia due to the pitiful and unbearable conditions.
Many African women who travel to the Persian Gulf countries to work as domestic workers live in dire conditions. One of the reasons for their difficult situation is the problematic “sponsorship” system, where foreign workers must be sponsored by a domestic employer, meaning that their legal status in the country depends on that person. In many cases, the employer confiscates the workers’ passports and has complete control over their lives.
Saudi Arabia announced in March 2021 that it had reformed the protection system, but according to the Migrant Rights NGO, which advocates for workers’ rights in the Persian Gulf countries, most vulnerable groups, including domestic workers, are still in dire straits.
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In this way, workers have two options despite their misbehaving employer: stay and complete their legal contract and continue working in miserable and difficult conditions or run away.
Saudi employers confiscate passports and all official documents of migrant workers and keep the documents with them until the contract with them ends. In this way, if a worker runs away, he will not have any documents and migrate to any country that has the primary support of the government of that country.
France 24 channel with a Kenyan female worker named Marie who had migrated to Saudi Arabia for work; talked. Mari declared that life in Saudi Arabia was very difficult. I was hungry at my employer’s house and did a lot of work only to get meager food and insufficient sleep.
The Saudi broker said he would help Mari for 3,500 Saudi riyals (equivalent to 885 euros). These details made Marie accept his offer and give him her address. This dealer sent a driver to take Marie to her house, but Marie did not have money to pay her fare and expenses. So he said to Marie: Accept any available job so that you can pay for the driver’s transportation. This pimp sexually harassed Mary.
Yoon Ndgi, the spokesperson of the International Organization for Migration in East Africa, said: “It is difficult for the Kenyan government to track the whereabouts of fugitive migrants because these migrants do not contact the embassy to announce their whereabouts.”
France 24 news channel contacted the Kenyan embassy in Saudi Arabia about the situation of unregistered Kenyan domestic workers. But he did not receive a reply.
Activists defending the rights of workers and foreign immigrants emphasize that many workers who traveled to Saudi Arabia to work have returned to their country with permanent physical injuries, among which many cases of broken hands, feet, and teeth have been recorded.
There are about 9 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of thousands of workers have left this country due to the difficult conditions for immigrants in Saudi Arabia. Foreign workers do not have the right to leave Saudi Arabia or change jobs without obtaining permission from their employers, who are mainly Saudi companies or individuals who seek profit from workers.
In August 2019, Human Rights Watch announced in a report that Saudi authorities punish workers without any violations and do not treat them fairly and do not give them their guaranteed rights based on international laws and charters. This is while the international charters of workers’ rights have guaranteed wages, good behavior, non-prosecution and the right to refer to the judicial system and get a lawyer.