“As If I Am Not Human” - Human Rights Watch

ight to return to one’s own country has been recognized as a norm of customary
international law. 50
The Saudi Ministry of Labor and the Saudi Human Rights Commission have informed
Human Rights Watch that the sponsorship system is under review, and that
alternatives are being researched. 51 One proposal is to create three or four large
recruitment agencies that would act as sponsors for all migrant workers in the
country. This proposal would purportedly address the control that employers have
over workers when they also act as immigration sponsors.
According to the Saudi Minister of Labor, Dr. Ghazi al-Qusaibi,
There are currently about 350 recruiting labor agencies. We will
introduce radical reforms to reduce the number to three big agencies,
with resources, supervised by the government. We keep closing the
bad agencies but new ones come, and we close them…. We want to
have requirements that the agents must have a university education
and a financial deposit. So many agencies have meager resources,
they are small shops with one or two people working there. We will
dissolve them and form big, private companies supervised by the
government. 52
If such a proposal was to move forward, these recruitment agencies would wield an
enormous amount of power and money. The government would need to regulate and
monitor such recruitment agencies rigorously, with clear standards for operating
procedures, penalties in case of abuse, and provisions for independent monitoring.
One official from a labor-sending country pointed out that a similar system is
implemented in Kuwait with poor results. He said, “There are bad aspects. The girl is
lost in the agency system. The sponsor may return her to the agency and the agency
December 18, 1990, G.A. Res. 45/158, annex, 45 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49A) at 262, U.N. Doc. A/45/49 (1990), entered into
force July 1, 2003, art. 8. Saudi Arabia is not party to either convention.
50 See “Current Trends in the Right to Leave and Return,” U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985.
51 Human Rights Watch interview with Fawzi Al-Dahan, March 10, 2008.
52 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Ghazi al-Qusaibi, minister of labor, Riyadh, December 3, 2006.
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Human Rights Watch July 2008