Abdul Basit’s visa was still in the process of getting transferred from the old to the new employers, so he called on the former to get a clarification.
“They didn’t know what was going on because, of course, I did not run away. They said it must be some mistake in some system and asked me to speak to their government relations officer because he was handling visas and iqamas for all employees for them,” he says.
A Government Relations Officer (GRO) works as an agent to oversee the implementation of the immigration and labour responsibilities of the company in Saudi Arabia. Only Saudis can work as a GRO, who monitor the administration of document collection, attestation, translation, visiting government offices, and all visa and passport matters for employees.
“I called the GRO and he simply told me that I had to pay him SAR 10,000 (USD$2600) for the status to be removed,” he said. “He was basically demanding a bribe.”
“I mean he is very well-connected, and he is Saudi. He can do anything,” he says. “This is why my old employers didn’t even want to get involved when I told them he was asking me for a bribe even though they seemed concerned. They need him for their work.”
Abdul Basit explains that the GRO kept calling him back, asking for updates on the payment, and assuring him that the status would disappear once the money was received.
“He kept saying that these things happen in the system all the time and if he got the payment, he would be able to fix it right away. He wasn’t directly saying it was a bribe, but I knew what it was.”
Abdul Basit did some quick maths and realised that paying the bribe might be the most efficient – and least expensive – option for him: if he let the two weeks pass, not only would he have to pay just as much in fines but he would also be detained, deported, and face a permanent entry ban. Or he could take the GRO to court for filing a false huroob, but he would likely have to pay even more in legal procedures with no guarantee of the outcome. It would also mean he could not continue working at his new job, as it is illegal to hire someone on a huroob status.
He paid the bribe and in three days his status was corrected.
“I had no choice. If the status was not removed in a few days, I would be an illegal who would get deported,” he says.
In the simplest cases, a migrant with huroob status automatically becomes undocumented and faces the chain of events Abdul Basit feared: arrest, detention, heavy fines, and deportation. Those who face additional other charges – such as theft – also face more jail time and fines. Anyone deported because of a huroob status receives a lifetime ban - Opens in new tab (prior to 2021, it was only a five-year ban) on re-entry into the country.
These repercussions are why Abdul Basit finds himself focusing less on the SAR10,000 he lost than on the relief that the issue was ‘resolved’ within the first fifteen days.
One of his colleagues, Mustafa*, missed the SMS notification. By the time the GRO reached out to him, the two weeks were close to passing.
Mustafa did not have the money to pay the bribe because, unlike Abdul Basit, he was unable to find a new job and had been relying on his savings to make ends meet.
The two weeks then passed, but the GRO continued to insist that he had inside connections that could fix the huroob status past the regular deadline if Mustafa could pay him SAR 20,000 (USD$5300).
“We discussed it a lot and thought sending the money now will just be a waste because it is unlikely that the huroob status can be changed now. We think he was lying,” says Abdul Basit about his friend’s experiences. Mustafa declined to speak on the record but has allowed Abdul Basit to share his own thoughts about the situation.
Mustafa is an Australian passport-holder of South Asian origin and is currently exhausting all the connections he has to help him get out of the country without having to go through the detention centre.
“He is a family man and at this point, his only concern is being able to get out of the country without having to go to jail,” says Abdul Basit. The detention centres that undocumented migrants are temporarily detained in are very similar to prisons. According to a Saudi newspaper - Opens in new tab, the average time period a detainee spends in these ‘centres’ is not longer than two weeks. However, Human Rights Watch has reported the inadequate conditions, including physical abuse - Opens in new tab.
“It is not new but, the frequency has increased by so much. It is a huge crisis, I tell you.”
Abdul Basit reiterates his confusion that people like himself and Mustafa, relatively well-earning expatriates, could experience such exploitation – something he had only heard that the most vulnerable workers endure.
However, a migrant rights activist in Saudi, Ahmed*, says that false huroob charges against well-earning migrant workers have become an increasingly prevalent method of exploitation in the past year.
“It has become such a huge crisis,” he says. Ahmed, originally from India, has lived in Riyadh for the past 33 years. He is actively involved in helping migrant workers in exploitative circumstances. “You have no idea how many cases show up daily now. Daily.”
He explains that the reforms to the Kafala system that were implemented in March 2021 - Opens in new tab have contributed to the huroob being increasingly ‘misused’.
“I will tell you what happened. Saudi businesses and powerful people realised that foreign workers being able to change their jobs with ease will be harmful to them. So they are using huroob to keep foreigners in check.”
Ahmed adds that he does not think that the Kafala reforms have eased restrictions in practice. “it is just on paper,” he says, despite the much-publicised claimed reforms that were implemented a year ago. The continued use of huroob is one of the elements that retain employers’ extreme control over workers
And as more and more businesses experience financial struggles due to the economic uncertainties of the time, they are exploiting and abusing foreign workers of all backgrounds.
“I know of a group of engineers who were fired because the company – a big one – was suffering losses. Then, out of nowhere, they were all slapped with huroob charges so they will not be able to come back to Saudi Arabia again and work for the competition,” he says.
False huroob charges are illegal, and businesses can receive a five-year ban on operating - Opens in new tab if caught, but it’s migrant workers who carry the burden of proof. The bureaucracy and legal requirements to challenge a huroob case are expensive and inaccessible to most migrant workers.
Ahmed says that over the past year, he has come across dozens of cases involving migrant workers in high-skilled jobs — people who never thought they would experience such violation — coming to him with problems.
“It is not new but, the frequency has increased by so much. It is a huge crisis, I tell you.”
An even worse plight for domestic workers
Previously, nearly all the cases he encountered were of the most vulnerable of migrants, especially domestic workers. Those incidents have not seen a decline either, he says.
Domestic workers are excluded - Opens in new tab from the sponsorship reforms and so cannot change jobs without the permission of their existing sponsors unless they can prove the employer has violated certain terms of their contract or the domestic workers’ law. But before they can even attempt to navigate complaints procedures, employers can quickly report them as absconding. Employers can report workers with ease online through the Absher portal - Opens in new tab. Domestic workers can use the same portal to check their status, however, few have knowledge or access to it. They have almost no recourse to remove the absconding charge and face automatic deportation and a lifetime entry ban after 15 days from the date the charge was filed. If a domestic worker has been made aware of their status prior to the 15 days passing, it is possible to file a complaint through the Jawazat (General Directorate for Passports), but this must be done in person.
“Not only can they not change employers easily, but the huroob is also a very powerful tool in the hands of employers,” says Ahmed. “If you are a domestic worker, you put up with all sorts of abuse because you don’t want a huroob. It is not even whether you run away or not – if the employer wants, they can destroy your life with a false huroob also.”
Anna-Marie is a 27-year-old domestic worker from the Philippines with a huroob status and is currently staying on a couch at her cousin’s apartment – looking for ‘illegal’ work.
She has turned to a Facebook community where Saudi-based migrant workers share experiences and offer advice to each other. Aside from a solution, she is looking to speak to others who have similar experiences as hers.
“My employers overworked me, and I was also sexually abused regularly by one of the men from their extended family who would visit,” she tells MR. “I put up with it because I need the job, but one day, when he had hurt me so much, I told the Mrs of the house, hoping she would help.”
She says that the next day she was informed that she has been put on a huroob status and should leave the house before they call the police.
“I hadn’t even run away,” she says. “I wanted to keep the job. I needed the job. But they didn’t want to deal with the family drama after I exposed what was happening to me, and just decided to dispose of me.”
Through the group, she has begun talking to a few other women who have recently been reported as huroob and are trying to navigate through their options. Some had left abusive employers while at least one other woman she was talking to was also put on a false huroob for calling out the exploitation she was facing at work.
She is looking for work and wants to continue working illegally, taking on multiple jobs ideally, until she is caught, detained, and then sent back to the Philippines forever.
She has been talking to several other ‘huroobs’ through the Facebook community. “Most of us didn’t even get full salaries from our sponsors anyways. And for me, there was also so much abuse. I think people on huroob just accept their fate that one day we will be caught, jailed, and sent back to our countries forever one day. Hopefully, we can save as much as possible until then.”
Through the Facebook community, she has also come across a few men who did, in fact, ‘abscond’ and prefer it that way. They are the very reason the absconding system is supposed to have been set up in the first place, to protect employers - Opens in new tab who are spending a lot of money to sponsor and bring migrant workers into the country to work for them.
Abdul Basit is also familiar with many workers who “‘ran away”.
He mentions a migrant neighbourhood in Jeddah. “Just go there and talk to the men. Pakistani, Indian, Yemeni, Egyptian, everyone. Most are on huroob and working as drivers or in factories. Unlike me, they did choose to run away from their employers.”
MR visited the neighbourhood and spoke to a few people.
None of them wanted to be named or identified in any way, but did express a sense of relief about the choice they made.
“Kafeels (sponsor) can be very evil and not pay salaries,” says an Indian in his thirties. “Instead of being forced to work for little to no pay, at least now I can try to find work here and there of my own will and support my family back home. Then when we are caught we will leave. Through jail but that is fine.”
He chuckles, perhaps at the absurdity of his reality, as he mentions the jail.
“The only way out will be through jail for all of us, no matter what. Until then, we are all trying to send as much money back home as possible.”
*Names changed
