• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Thursday, May 26, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Pakistani Migrant Workers Lack Basic Protections in Saudi Arabia

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
03/28/18
in Featured, World
Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia

Foreign workers gather outside the Saudi immigration department on November 4, 2013 in downtown Riyadh. Photo: Fayez Nureldine, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

As international migration continues to grow rapidly all over the world, it makes legal frameworks that protect the rights of the most vulnerable of migrants a dire necessity.

According to a U.N. report, the number of migrants reached 258 million in 2017, up from 220 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000. Countries in the Middle East’s Gulf, in particular, have significant migrant populations.

According to Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain, an organization that fosters awareness of and support for democracy and human rights, there are an estimated 25 million migrants across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. They account for 70 percent of the area’s total workforce, and almost half of its total population.

“While most Gulf countries have begun pushing for some sort of reform when it comes to labor laws for migrant workers in recent years, there are many gaps left to fill,” Somayya Mohammed, an immigration lawyer based in the Middle East, told The Globe Post.

“Ensuring all migrants under criminal prosecution have a right to a fair trial is one that needs considerable work – both by the host country and the consul of the home country. Migrant prisoners are some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” she added.

Sarah Belal, the executive director of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), told The Globe Post that the prisoners “suffer rampant due process violations, such as long periods of detention without charge or trial, no access to legal assistance, pressure from the authorities to sign confessions and accept predetermined prison sentences, and ineffective translation services for defendants.”

JPP is a nonprofit human rights law firm that provides pro bono legal advice and investigative services to the most vulnerable of Pakistani prisoners, at home and abroad.

A new report by JPP and Human Rights Watch, dubbed Caught in a Web, has revealed the importance of consular protection policies and prison transfer agreements in efforts to protect migrant rights, especially in countries with criminal justice systems harsher than most.

The Philippine government, for example, regularly intervenes on behalf of its overseas workers. According to a 2011 government inquiry on behalf of the Committee on Overseas Workers’ Affairs, there was “no doubt” that the country’s diplomatic staff actively monitored developments in death-row cases involving Philippine citizens in Gulf countries.

In 2014, Sri Lanka signed a labor deal with Saudi Arabia seeking to protect the rights of 500,000 of its citizens working there. The move was made after a Sri Lankan maid was beheaded in the kingdom. At the moment, the Sri Lankan embassy has a 24-hour hotline where distressed workers can call for help.

In October 2015, a Saudi employer chopped off an Indian domestic worker’s hand. The Indian embassy immediately took note of the incident, providing the victim with consular and legal help to pursue charges against the employer.

The JPP report has also revealed the shortcomings of Pakistani authorities when it comes to protecting migrants in the tangles of the Saudi criminal justice.

About 1.6 million Pakistanis, most of them migrant workers, make up the second-largest migrant community in Saudi Arabia. The latter executes more Pakistanis than any other foreign nationals – 66 citizens of Pakistan have been executed since October 2014.

The report has documented many ways in which both countries have failed these migrants, based on interviews with 22 Pakistanis detained and put on trial in Saudi Arabia, and seven family members of nine other defendants, caught in 19 different cases.

The Globe Post spoke to Khurram (name changed), a salesman living in Sargodha, Pakistan, whose brother has been in jail in Saudi Arabia since 2013.

“My brother, Mustafa (name changed), had been working there in an accounting firm for two years when he visited us back for a holiday,” Khurram explained. “Another Pakistani in Saudi contacted him during that time and mentioned that his family wanted to send him some clothes and asked Mustafa if he could bring it with him.”

Mustafa agreed, but there were some drugs hidden between the clothes, and he got arrested right away after going through customs at Jeddah airport.

Saudi Arabia does not notify Pakistan’s officials about the arrests of Pakistani citizens, and neither has the government of Pakistan taken any steps to provide consular assistance, the JPP report said.

“We didn’t hear from him – or [from] anyone about him – for 17 whole days,” Khurram said with a shaky voice recalling the experience. “We didn’t know if he was alive. We didn’t know anything. I can’t explain what our family went through, [even] if I tried.”

Mustafa’s wife and children live in Pakistan and speak to him on the phone every few months, but they have not seen him since he was arrested in 2013.

“Most of the people we spoke to said that they were only able to contact family members eventually by paying other detainees to use contraband phones smuggled into prisons and detention centers,” Ms. Belal said.

Saudi Arabia does not have the policy to provide public defender services or any state support to those who cannot afford private lawyers. In the 19 cases researched by JPP, only one defendant was able to engage a defense lawyer.

“Without legal assistance, the defendants end up signing confessions or agreeing to verdicts which sometimes directly harm their interests,” Ms. Belal noted.

The language barrier also proves to be a key hindrance to detainees’ failure in finding justice.

“With a lack of understanding of Arabic, the detainees are unable to communicate with the courts or understand the contents of Arabic-language court documents,” Ms. Belal explained.

The court-appointed translators do not usually provide adequate services and can also sometimes intentionally misrepresent detainees’ statements to judges, as in the case of four of the 22 defendants interviewed.

During a panel discussion at the launch of the JPP report in Islamabad on March 7, Pakistani Senator Sehar Kamran pointed out the capacity limitations and “sheer indifference” at the Pakistani Embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia.

She urged an increase in the number of community welfare officers and establishment of a Community Welfare Fund that can be used to hire effective legal representation for Pakistanis detained in that country.

According to JPP, most Pakistanis involved in criminal cases do not seek consular services from the Pakistani embassy in Riyadh or the consulate in Jeddah during their detentions because they do not believe Pakistani officials will offer any help.

“We should have a cell, in one or various relevant ministries, that has the mandate to examine, pursue and investigate the cases of these Pakistani prisoners abroad,” Senator Farhatullah Babar said.

He also suggested the creation of a regularly updated database of Pakistanis imprisoned abroad, which would contain details about all overseas Pakistani prisoners and progress of their cases or convictions.

“All political parties should put in their manifestos and to negotiate bilateral agreements that allow Pakistani citizens in the Gulf countries to serve their sentences at home,” said Dr. Sireen Mazar, another Parliamentarian who participated in the panel discussion.

It is the right of every migrant, under constitutional and international laws, that their home country protects them from shortcomings of a host country’s criminal justice system, she added.

Indonesian Migrant Workers Fight Against Inhumane Treatment Abroad

Share5Tweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

Related Posts

Mohammed bin Salman
Democracy at Risk

HRW Labels Saudi Mass Execution ‘Brutal Show of Autocratic Rule’

by Staff Writer
March 15, 2022
Justin Bieber
Lifestyle

‘Weaponizing Bieber’ – Canadian Pop Star Caught Up in Saudi Rights Row

by Staff Writer
December 1, 2021
Ali al-Nimr
Democracy at Risk

Saudi Releases Shiite Ex-Death Row Prisoner Al-Nimr: Rights Group

by Staff Writer
October 27, 2021
Saudi Arabia Covid vaccination
Business

Saudi Ups Pressure on Anti-Vaxxers as It Eyes Economic Recovery

by Staff Writer
May 24, 2021
President Joe Biden
National

Biden Warns Taliban, Presses Pakistan as He Announces Afghan Exit

by Staff Writer
April 14, 2021
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, while he was inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
World

Reporters Without Borders Sue Saudi Prince Over Khashoggi Murder

by Staff Writer
March 2, 2021
Next Post
Dutch voters

Dutch Voters Say 'No' to New Spy Law

Rohingya refugees

Myanmar Clears Several Hundred Rohingya for Return

Recommended

The Onion

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’

May 25, 2022
police line

Teen Gunman Kills 15 at Texas Elementary School

May 24, 2022
refugees

More Than 100 Million People Forcibly Displaced, UN Says

May 23, 2022
Volkswagen logo

German Farmer Sues Volkswagen Over CO2 Emissions

May 20, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Russia Says Economy Grew 3.5 Percent in First Quarter

May 18, 2022
Mexico missing people

Over 100,000 People Reported Missing in Mexico, Data Reveals

May 17, 2022

Opinion

A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
China Muslim Uyghurs

Unfair Politicization, Corruption, and the Death of Modern Olympism

April 23, 2022
Ukraine war

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

April 20, 2022
Chinese leader Xi Jinping

How Wrong ‘How China Can End the War in Ukraine’ Is

April 1, 2022
Ukraine children

The War for Ukraine’s Lives and Minds

March 30, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post