Saudi Arabia Begins Kicking Out Foreign Workers

by Peyman Pejman

(IPS) RIYADH -- Subodh Shetty is a quiet, dignified, and reserved man. So even two weeks after an event that he calls "very, very humiliating" in which he was taken to a detention centre, his head shaved and was not able to eat or drink for 24 hours, he still tries to appear humble by chuckling when his voice starts to choke.

"It was Feb. 29. About 5PM I was at the sales counter and handling customers when three men from the police, governor's office and the city municipality walked in, asked the passengers to leave, took our residence permits and put us in the back of a van with two small windows, kind of like transporting animals," says the 39-year-old Indian travel agency executive.

"It was very, very humiliating to be picked up like that in an area where a lot of people know you," says Shetty, from Bombay, who has lived in Saudi Arabia for 13 years.

He and three of his colleagues were detained because of an expedited process the government is trying to enforce -- 'Saudization' -- which assigns quotas that businesses in some industries have to meet in order to hire Saudi nationals. So far, the government has targeted the tourism, hospitality and computer industries.

Critics argue that there has been a lack of communication between the government and businesses on details of the policy.

"We were told about 35 percent of the counter sales people have to be Saudis. But when they came to pick us up, they said it should have been 100 percent. We didn't know anything about it. It was a complete surprise, even to our sponsor," says Shetty.

In principle, there seems nothing wrong with a government trying to ensure that its citizens are hired before foreign guest workers. Saudi Arabia has an official unemployment rate of about eight percent among its male population, but officials and business leaders admit the real figure is between 20 and 30 percent. Except in some private offices, Saudi women are not allowed to work.

Although official figures on the subject are hard to come by, of Saudi Arabia's population of about 23 million, about 5 million are Asian "guest workers." Many of whom have lived in the kingdom for years.

Ghassan Sulaiman, a deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah, Saudi's second largest city, says the policy of downsizing the foreign workforce is not new.

"The threat of having a workforce that is not made of mainly Saudis was first seen 35 years ago," says Sulaiman. "There was a provision in the first five-year plan that said we have to take action to ensure that there is an increasing portion of the Saudi workforce." "However, and unfortunately, that initiative was not really implemented until the whole country felt threatened by this time bomb, if I may call it that," he adds.

What he and others -- even some Asian workers -- are objecting to is the way the policy is being handled.

What also concerns many Asians in this tightly ruled kingdom is the treatment that Shetty and a dozen others detained received in the course of their detention, although some government officials have blamed that on the indiscretion of individual law enforcement officers.

"This was just some 'Saudization' committee members going berserk. There was no directive from the top," says Sulaiman.

Shetty does not assign blame, but only laments that his experience did happen. "They took us to a detention centre and put us in with hundreds of others, ranging from criminals and drug dealers to those who had overstayed their visa and were here illegally," Shetty says.

"We asked for water and they said 'drink it from the bathroom tap'. The place was extremely filthy. It was unbelievable. Plus, I am a vegetarian, so for the first 24 hours we had no food or water," he recalls.

"The cell was big enough to hold about 80 people but there must have been over 200 of us. There was so little room that we were sitting with our back to each other. My colleague was so cold he was shivering all night," he adds.

Shetty says that despite the best efforts of his Saudi sponsor, whom he calls "a very good and caring human being," he and his colleagues had to spend a second day in detention, although they were moved to a more comfortable place, and offered food and water.

Sulaiman says business leaders are against full-scale and immediate "Saudization."

"We respond, saying it has to be done gradually. Too many of the jobs cannot be "Saudized" with the present problems we have. There are many jobs the Saudis will not fill. They look at them as menial. There are many jobs that Saudis are not qualified to hold," he adds.

"Once these two groups are excluded, the five million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia will shrink to a much, much lower number, and even that number has to be done gradually," Sulaiman explains. "We are against 100 percent 'Saudization' of any sector because we believe we need to retain the best of the expatriates that we have so our Saudi brothers can learn from them, it is totally wrong to go 100 percent."

Meanwhile, Asian workers like Shetty find themselves at a crossroads.

On one hand, many of them have lived in a nation that has provided them with jobs they could not find in their home country. On the other hand, as Shetty says, "the writing is on the wall and perhaps it is high time we pack it in and take advantage of the skills we have learned some other way, some other place."