Saudi Arabia Dismisses Talk of Migrant Labor Reforms

Local Editor

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Labor and Social Development took to Twitter on Sunday dismissing recent rumors that Riyadh might be planning to abandon the much-criticized Kafala sponsorship system for migrant workers in the country.

A message posted on the account, which is managed by official ministry spokesman, Khalid Aba al-Khail, in response to an enquiry stated simply that "a decision to this effect" had not been issued.

Saudi Arabia is regularly criticized for its continued practice of the Kafala system, forms of which also exist in countries including Lebanon, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE.

According to the system all unskilled laborers must have in-country sponsors, usually their employers, who are responsible for their visa and legal status.

Rights groups said that this system provides easy opportunities for exploitation with many employers taking away passports and abusing their workers with impunity, with little risk of legal repercussions.

For such reasons in extreme cases the Kafala system has been called a modern form of slavery.

The Labor and Social Development Ministry's comment on the issue comes at a time when Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed announced ambitions plans, under the title "Vision 2030", to reform Saudi Arabia's economy and society, and some regional states had committed to reform their migrant labor systems.

In April Bahrain is set to introduce a new labor system that will provide monthly work permits to more than 52,000, following in the footsteps of Qatar which announced that it had abandoned the system late last year, also adopting a contract-based law.

However, Amnesty International poured scorn on alterations to labor laws made in Qatar arguing that the new law "may get rid of the word 'sponsorship' but leaves the same basic system intact" and will, for example, still require migrant workers seek their employer's consent in order to return home.

Millions of migrant workers - mainly from South Asia in addition to other Arab states such as Lebanon, Sudan, and Egypt - work in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia 99.6 percent and 94.8 percent of all domestic workers and personal assistants are migrant workers.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team