Saudi Arabia
Trafficking Routes
Saudi Arabia is a destination country for trafficking in persons. Women from Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, Sri Lanka, and other East African countries are trafficked into Saudi Arabia. Children are also trafficked from Afghanistan and Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia.
Factors That Contribute to the Trafficking Infrastructure
Saudis rely heavily on migrant workers in all sectors of the job market. Some 5.5 million foreigners are employed in Saudi Arabia, accounting for one-third of the total population. Documented migrants can easily slip into illegal status. Employers and sponsors sometimes deliberately let residence permits expire or sell workers to other employers, thereby invalidating work permits. Migrants working in such undocumented or "irregular" situations are among the most vulnerable to exploitation.
Court cases are not published in Saudi Arabia, making it difficult to uncover unfair trials and the lack of due process.
Forms of Trafficking
At least 1 million women from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka work legally in Saudi Arabia. The overwhelming majority work as domestic help in private households, but others work as hairdressers, beauticians, and seamstresses and in other positions. Many of these female migrants suffer from long working hours, unpaid salaries, and threats of intimidation and confinement. Many have their passports confiscated and are not provided with an official residence permit, the only valid document in Saudi Arabia for identification purposes. Without a permit, the women are unable to move freely without fear of arrest.
There are reports that victims of trafficking are exploited for commercial sex or are forced into domestic service. Many women trafficked to Saudi Arabia from Sri Lanka work as maids, and Nepali girls from low castes and rural poverty are trafficked for prostitution.
Indonesian girls are forced into prostitution and domestic labor. In May 2003, 118 Indonesian women were jailed for prostitution in Saudi Arabia. Some of the women may have gone to Saudi Arabia initially as legal migrants but were then forced into prostitution. Authorities also arrested three Indonesian pimps. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers in Saudi Arabia are employed as maids, small traders, and construction workers.
Boys have been trafficked to Saudi Arabia to work as camel jockeys. For example, in 2002, Indian immigration officials rescued nine Bangladeshi boys, between 4 and 8 years old, from traffickers who were taking the boys to Saudi Arabia to work as camel jockeys. The children were accompanied by eight adults, who were posing as their parents. Some of the adults admitted that they worked as agents for a camel-racing racket based in Saudi Arabia.
Afghan children have reportedly been abducted from Afghanistan, especially from the northern region, and smuggled to Saudi Arabia. Some of the children have claimed, upon repatriation to Afghanistan, that they were living as slaves to Arab sheikhs. One Afghan woman claimed she witnessed the sexual abuse of girls by Arab buyers.
Government Responses
Islamic law prohibits any sexual relationship outside of marriage. Prostitution constitutes adultery, which is punishable by 100 lashes if the perpetrator of the crime is unmarried and by death from stoning in cases involving married persons.
A 1962 royal decree abolished slavery. Forced or compulsory labor is prohibited. The labor law does not apply to domestic service. The Saudi Arabian grand mufti, the highest Islamic authority in the country, issued a fatwa on 3 September 2002, against abuse of foreign laborers by Saudi employers. The fatwa stated that "blackmailing and threatening [foreign] laborers with deportation if they refuse the employers' terms, which breach the contract, is not allowed."
Foreign workers traditionally were under the control of a Saudi sponsor. The sponsorship rule was recently abolished in Saudi Arabia in accordance with the new Foreign Investment Act, but that act applies only to employees who work for a foreign investor doing business in Saudi Arabia. A recent Saudi Counsel of Ministers decree (Decree No. 166) explicitly provides that alien employees are entitled to keep their travel documents and the travel documents of their family. The employees also are permitted to travel anywhere in Saudi Arabia without showing documentation, which was previously required. The decree also requires that the relationship between the employer and alien employees be regulated in accordance with the employment contract and not the sponsorship rules. Under the decree, alien employees no longer require the prior approval of their employer to execute transactions such as obtaining a driver's license, obtaining a telephone line, or buying or renting a residence.
The government has had some success in prosecuting persons who exploit others in commercial sex. In August 2002, the Saudi Arabian government broke up a prostitution ring in Medina and sentenced the woman operating it to 15 years in prison and 5,000 lashes. In October 2003, Saudi Arabia repatriated 42 Afghan children who were reportedly deported by the Saudi government because they were living illegally in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Human rights activists, however, claimed the children were trafficked to Saudi Arabia for abuse. Another 208 children were expected to be returned to Afghanistan in the days following.
In February 2004, Saudi authorities arrested a couple from Myanmar who had allegedly sold their son, together with an undisclosed number of children, for the equivalent of US$2,600. The couple was offering both Saudi and foreign children for sale.
In early 2003, Saudi Arabia began forming a national human rights institution that would be responsible for implementing the government's human rights decisions and making local laws consistent with the country's system of governance, which is based primarily on human rights.
The Saudi government announced in February 2004 that it was building a "security wall" on its southern border with the Republic of Yemen to curb illegal immigration and trafficking of drugs and weapons. According to several Yemeni newspapers, Yemen has complained that a 20-kilometer stretch of the wall is in what is supposed to be a neutral zone, as stipulated in border agreements signed in 2000. Saudi officials claimed the wall was being constructed only on Saudi territory.Nongovernmental and International Organization Responses
In addition to forming a national human rights institution, a May 2003 royal decree approved the establishment of Saudi Arabia's first nongovernmental human rights organization. The organization is to be completely independent; however, more information on the organization's activities is not available.
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