Holding onto Employee Passports: Unlawful Saudi Arabia’s reputation as a place unfriendly to human rights is taking a toll on businesses, a front-page story in Saudi Gazette reports. Saudi employers simply do not have the legal right to hold the passports of their employers. Not only is this behavior forbidden under international human rights law, but it is forbidden under Saudi law as well. Employers who hold onto the passports of their workers or their workers’ families do so in the belief that this will prevent the employee from leaving. It doesn’t work that way, though. Bad employers will find that their employees will leave when they find a better opportunity and can figure out how to get around the bureaucratic red tape. Or, they’ll just flee. Depriving employees of their rights is not how an employer builds loyalty. Laws that are not obeyed and laws that are not enforced are a problem. Both lead to a lessening of respect for government. In this case, they also lead to a lessening of respect for Saudi businesses and Saudi Arabia as a whole by providing yet another opportunity for ‘Saudi-bashing’. ‘Unlawful to hold passports of expats’ RIYADH – Saudi employers are breaking the Kingdom’s laws by holding the passports of their foreign employees, said Fadhl Abu Al-Ainain, an economist. Al-Ainain was quoted Monday in a section of the Arabic press as saying that the law is ignored by some employers and not enforced by government agencies. This has resulted in unnecessary litigation with various international organizations. As a consequence, some international human rights and labor organizations accuse the Kingdom of condoning and abetting human trafficking, he added. Al-Ainain said certain business owners are giving the Kingdom a bad name internationally with this type of illegal behavior. xrdarabia.org/2012/03/13/holding-onto-employee-passports-unlawful/ …
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 08:31:29 +0000
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