âAs If I Am Not Humanâ - Human Rights Watch

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• Introduce mandatory orientation programs for Saudi employers on their legal rights and obligations when employing a domestic worker, strategies for dealing with misunderstandings due to communication barriers and cultural differences, and referrals to resources if problems should arise. • Introduce mandatory orientation programs for migrant domestic workers upon arrival on their legal rights and obligations. Such programs should include information on where they can seek help in case of problems, training on financial literacy to use bank accounts, information about how to stay in touch with their families, introduction to officials from their embassies, and information about Saudi laws, such as activities that may be permissible in their home countries but criminalized in Saudi Arabia. Reform sponsorship laws that link a migrant domestic worker’s legal status, ability to change employers, and ability to exit Saudi Arabia to her employer. • Reform or abolish the kafala sponsorship system so that temporary employment-based visas are nonspecific about the employer. Ensure that workers can change employers without losing legal status and without having to obtain their first employer’s permission. • Eliminate the requirement for migrant domestic workers to secure the consent of their sponsors for “exit visas” to leave the country. • Create an inspection body to monitor rigorously the activity of recruitment agencies if they take over sponsorship of foreign workers as currently proposed. This body should have the power to investigate allegations of misconduct and institute penalties, including revocation of operating licenses, imposition of substantial fines, and referral of cases for criminal prosecution. Create a board with representation from all stakeholders, including laborsending countries and civil society. • Create an easily accessible and regularly updated database of employers and employees in order to track employers when domestic workers are missing or unable to name or locate their employer. • Simplify procedures for authorization to repatriate the remains of migrants who die in Saudi Arabia. 125 Human Rights Watch July 2008
Cooperate with labor-sending governments in regard to detained nationals. • Notify embassies about detained nationals and developments in criminal proceedings, such as hearing dates, in a timely manner and according to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. • Promptly notify migrant workers of their right to contact their consular officials, and provide access to facilities to do so. • Cooperate with labor-sending countries to conduct rescues of migrant domestic workers confined to their employers’ house and forced to continue employment against their will. Simplify the procedures for authorization of such rescues. Improve the facilities and protocols for the centers for domestic workers operated by the Ministry of Social Affairs. • Provide women housed in the center with greater freedom of movement and communication, including the ability to call their families and embassies, take walks outside, and keep mobile phones. • Computerize the files for ease of processing and tracking cases, sharing information with other relevant Saudi authorities and labor-sending countries’ embassies, and to monitor trends. Create and share blacklists of abusive employers and recruitment agencies. • Provide professional interpreters for any interviews or meetings involving a domestic worker’s case and ensure the availability of staff fluent in the languages that domestic workers speak. • Create a detailed intake form to ensure that all the issues of concern a domestic worker experienced are identified upon entry into the center. • Separate the negotiations regarding unpaid wages and funds for a return ticket from the employer’s consent to provide an exit visa, to avoid heavily imbalanced bargaining power. • Keep domestic workers informed about the status of their case and their available options. “As If I Am Not Human” 126
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Saudi Arabia “As If I Am Not Huma
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Copyright © 2008 Human Rights Watc
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VII. Psychological, Physical, and S
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est cases help to pull their famili
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The Saudi government is considering
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employers were not at home, they we
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Greater multilateral and regional c
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II. Methodology This report is base
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homes, labor recruitment agencies,
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III. Asian Women’s Labor Migratio
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approximately 600,000 domestic work
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Table 1: Estimated Earned Income fo
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said, “I managed to buy a televis
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Contracts are not clear, agents in
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IV. Legal Framework for Migrant Dom
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outlined in the annex will be enfor
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edeploys her…. Why are agencies i
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ensuring its policies prevent condi
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workers may now get an exemption fr
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V. Forced Labor, Trafficking, Slave
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the garbage. They didn’t let me u
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Saudi Arabia’s requirement that d
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At his mother’s house, she treate
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They took me to an agency [in Saudi
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status as defined in the Supplement
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VI. Recruitment and Immigration-rel
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was not going to Dubai, I only foun
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working but this lady is finding fa
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experience, this was their first ti
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association, both of which are deni
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from home. Shanthi A. reflected the
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of crimes. The Saudi government tre
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dizzy. We didn’t take a break. Th
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her up until she developed gangrene
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Employers also intimidated workers
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started beating me up on my head as
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He said, “I have not taken advant
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Watch, “I got a loan for 2 millio
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VIII. Labor Abuses and Exploitation
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Page 81 and 82: hand, summed up the situation of ma
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Page 87 and 88: threw it away and didn’t give it
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Page 91 and 92: members and, in the case of foreign
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Page 95 and 96: analyzed by Human Rights Watch, Sri
Page 97 and 98: women who are pregnant. One embassy
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Page 101 and 102: or physical shelter on which to rel
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Page 109 and 110: workers, they have two main options
Page 111 and 112: Arabia as efforts to repatriate or
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Page 115 and 116: etter that you go back to your coun
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Page 119 and 120: The embassies of Indonesia, Sri Lan
Page 121 and 122: Lack of Resources and Uneven Respon
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Page 125 and 126: Arbitration of Labor Disputes by Fo
Page 127 and 128: have been paid in front of us.” T
Page 129: XII. Detailed Recommendations The S
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Page 137 and 138: Fund microcredit lending programs t
Page 139: H UMAN R I GHTS WATCH 350 Fifth Ave
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âAs If I Am Not Humanâ - Human Rights Watch