Saudi Arabian electrician Hatem says he has an expired residence permit (AFP)
Riyadh:
Unemployed and broke, Sudanese electrician Hatem is trapped in Riyadh’s limbo like countless other illegal workers, but he hopes the fast-spread coronavirus will offer a chance to escape.
With coronavirus causing huge exodus of expatriates, activists say hundreds of thousands of illegal workers remain stranded in Saudi Arabia, making efforts to fight the disease more difficult.
The pandemic has exposed what activists call systemic injustices disrupting the lives of blue-collar workers in Saudi Arabia – overcrowded housing, exploitative employers and a lack of effective remedies.
Activists have called on Saudi Arabia to reform its long-criticized labor policy and offer an amnesty to the indebted working poor trapped in the country, a situation that is likely to fuel the pandemic.
The problem is rooted in the “kafala” sponsorship system, described by critics as a modern form of slavery that links workers to their Saudi employers, whose permission is required to enter and exit the kingdom as well as to change their employment.
Employers also have enough control to make their status illegal, activists say and interviews with four undocumented workers, including Hatem, a 45-year-old electrician living underground in Riyadh to avoid arrest.
“My six children, my old mother, my sister in Sudan … live in a difficult situation, but I live in much worse conditions,” Hatem told AFP in his sordid apartment in Riyadh, which he shares. with other workers.
“The sponsorship system is very unfair,” said Hatem, who arrived in 2016.
Request amnesty
Saudi Arabia, home to around 10 million expatriates, has expelled hundreds of thousands of illegal workers in recent years.
But many like Hatem who are trapped in a debt trap are not allowed to leave before paying their dues, even though the kafala restrictions prevent them from legally earning their way to freedom.
“The Saudi government should offer an amnesty to irregular migrants in order to regularize their status or return to their country of origin,” Annas Shaker, a researcher with the rights group, told AFP. migrants.
Retaining these workers, many of whom are forced to hide, risks stoking the pandemic, warned observers, including Shaker.
Saudi Arabia has reported more than 200,000 infections and nearly 2,000 deaths. According to hospital sources, doctors and nurses are among these dying people and the intensive care units are beyond their capacity.
Saudi nationalists online have openly demanded the expulsion of expatriate communities, widely blamed for spreading the disease.
A columnist for a Saudi newspaper called for the “cleansing” of the oil-rich Gulf State of excess foreign workers.
Hatem, who manages thanks to the kindness of foreigners, implored the Sudanese embassy in Riyadh to urge the authorities to grant him the exit visa he needs to leave.
Neither responded to AFP’s request for comment.
A South Asian official told AFP that he had received similar requests for exit visas from workers on the subcontinent struggling with debts stuck in the same situation, many for years.
In a special announcement in March, Saudi Arabia offered free treatment for coronaviruses to illegal workers and did not promise any compensation if they showed up for treatment.
But after years of what workers call brutal treatment by the authorities, this move has raised suspicion.
Three other undocumented workers who spoke to AFP – two from Egypt and one from Bangladesh – said they would not be willing to come forward if they contracted the virus.
One of the Egyptians, a father of two, 36, said he couldn’t take the risk after taking out a huge loan to work in the kingdom as a private driver.
“There is no guarantee that I will not be arrested,” he said.
“Extortion”
Kafala persists even after Saudi media announced in February that the government would “soon” abolish the system.
Hatem’s nightmare began when his sponsor began to demand a large part of his income in exchange for the renewal of his residence permit each year.
Foreign workers say they are often vulnerable to such “extortion” from their sponsors in order to continue working legally after many arrive heavily in debt from their country of origin.
Hatem, who also needed to support his extended family, said the demand pushed him further into a debt trap as he borrowed heavily to pay his sponsor.
But, he added, the employer denounced him to the authorities as a “huroob”, the Arabic for flight, a status which makes him a criminal who risks being imprisoned and expelled.
The expiration of his residence permit makes his presence illegal, making it impossible to access basic services or legally find work to repay his debt, which is in the thousands of rials.
“For hundreds of thousands of migrants in Saudi Arabia, irregularity is not a choice,” said Shaker, adding that sponsors can declare huroob workers “by pressing a button online” or choose to avoid deliberately to renew permits.
“They are driven to irregularity due to inadequate labor and migration policies that give employers a big influence over them.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
