The abuse of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia
NOVANEWS
By Graham Peebles
With few opportunities at home, millions of poor, desperate men and women from southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa migrate annually to Saudi Arabia, where many are enslaved and badly abused, or even killed.
Slavery is woven into the psyche of the kingdom. According to Saudi scholar Ali al-Ahmed, a “culture of slavery pervades the country”, and although banned in 1964, when it is thought there were 30,000 slaves in the country, the barbaric practice of owning a fellow human being still exists in the form of the internationally condemned kafala sponsorship system. By tying the residency status of migrant workers to their employers, the system grants the latter total control, amounting to ownership.
Under the scheme employers confiscate the passports, money and ...