The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has welcomed the declaration of the Geneva-based International Labor Organization (ILO) aiming to curb forcible labor, trade on humans, and call for organized economy, a move, he said, is consistent with Saudi Arabia's policy in this field. In a speech at the 103rd session of the International Labor Conference in Geneva today, ongoing over two weeks, Dr. Mufrej Al-Hagbani, Deputy Minister of Labor, also lauded the ILO efforts to achieve social justice, and face obstacles derailing labor market amid current changes and endeavor to insert the issue of international immigration on the agenda of this session. He reviewed the Kingdom's experience to host millions of expatriates accompanied by more than 3,000,000 dependants, whom, he said, were contributing to the constructional, service and productive development projects in Saudi Arabia. He also cast light on his country's policies to tackle the situations of illegal and violating foreign laborers and the corrective campaign to solve the problem over seven months starting mid-last year. He also briefed the conference on Saudi Arabia's efforts to rectify the situations of home laborers according to strict contracts. Al-Hagbani pointed to the successes achieved by Saudi Arabia's ministry of labor in the field of employing Saudi job seekers in the private sector, raising the rate of their participation from 10% to 15% by June 2011.
