MADINAH — The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has discovered that most sponsors' complaints against their employees accusing them of huroub (escaping or being absent from work) are “malicious”. A source from the organization said: “The NSHR, which has been involved in labor cases, has found out that most of the huroub cases against expatriate workers were malicious.” He said when differences occur among them, the sponsors will immediately report their workers as “escapees” so that the passport police (Jawazat) will apprehend, detain and deport them. He said the society has received complaints from a number of expatriates accusing their sponsors of unjustifiably reporting them as escapees. “When the NSHR thoroughly investigated these complaints, it became clear that the majority of them were malicious and aimed only at punishing the employees and deporting them from the Kingdom without giving them their financial rights,” he said. The source said the society was able to solve many of the labor differences between sponsors and employees peacefully. “The society has either reached a settlement with the employer or transferred the employee's iqama to another sponsor so that he is released from detention,” he said. The source said the society noted that these kinds of complaints were abundant particularly in Riyadh and Jeddah but they were of small size in other towns and cities. “Despite the strenuous efforts of the society, the problem still very much exists in the Kingdom,” he said. NSHR's Secretary-General Khaled Al-Fakhry said the passport police, labor offices and other concerned authorities never hesitate to punish sponsors who raise complaints with the sole purpose of depriving employees of their legal rights. “The Interior Ministry's department of expatriates and the Labor Ministry have drafted stern rules and regulations that will help curb the phenomenon of huroub,” he said. He said after serious investigations the society was able to scrap a large number of malicious complaints. “The society has also settled a number of the huroub cases cordially between the sponsors and the expatriate workers,” he added.
