Ministry completes study on replacing sponsorship system

April 3, 2012

labour

Jeddah, April 3: The Labor Ministry has completed a study on prospects of canceling the individual kafala (sponsorship) system replacing it with recruitment companies. The move may lead to the nullification of sponsorship system all together at a later stage.

The study, which took five years to complete, included the rules and regulations for the new recruitment companies. “The study will be presented to the Council of Ministers shortly for approval,” an informed source told Arab News.

The study proposed the formation of a commission under the Labor Ministry to look into foreign labor issues and put end to the traditional sponsorship system. The commission will be based in Riyadh and will have branches in major cities.

The study advised the government not to hold passports of foreign workers and cancel the condition of obtaining sponsor’s approval for a worker to bring his family to the Kingdom.

According to the new system, an employer would not be responsible for the wrong actions of a foreign worker outside his work. “The new system is designed to protect the rights of both foreign workers and employers,” the source said.

The study proposed introduction of a mandatory insurance scheme to protect financial rights of foreign workers and employers. The scheme, which may act as an effective tool to end the justification for introducing the sponsorship system, would cover the damages caused by a foreign worker, payment of unpaid salaries and provision of air tickets.

The insurance scheme will also protect employers from possible risks such as robbery, embezzlement, damages, leakage of important business information and damages caused by the worker to others.

The recruitment companies will take necessary measures for recruitment of workers required by individuals and for their journey back to their countries if they wanted so. It will also facilitate transfer of workers from one company to another, the source pointed out.

“The details of the new system would be discussed with various government departments before finalizing it,” the source said. “No date has been fixed yet to implement the new system,” he added.

Some analysts said the new system would bring only partial solution to the problem as it addresses only a group of foreign workers such as drivers, maids, private nurses and other house servants.

Khaled Aburashid, a legal expert, said the new system would benefit foreign workers. The new recruitment firms will be shareholding companies and their boards of directors will include a member from the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) to make sure they protect the rights of workers in accordance with the Labor Law.

However, NSHR officials feared that the new system would bring only structural changes. The sponsorship system was introduced in the Kingdom about 60 years ago in 1371H and the world has changed a lot during this period, including labor rules.

Dr. Hussein Al-Sharief, president of NSHR, urged the government to take into consideration an 80-page study prepared by his organization on the cancelation of the sponsorship system correcting the relationship between the worker and employer. “Our study has taken into consideration the rights of both workers and employers,” he pointed out.

Some aspects of the present sponsorship system go against the Shariah and contradict international agreements related to human rights, Al-Sharief said, citing matters such as holding passports of foreign workers by the employer and the difficulty in transfer of sponsorship from one employer to another.

The Council of Ministers issued a decision No. 166 in 1421H calling for organizing the relationship between the foreign worker and employer within the framework of a work contract. It emphasized the need to replace sponsorship and sponsor with work contract and employer in the residency and labor laws. Although the Cabinet adopted the decision eight years ago many government departments still have not yet implemented it. This delay has affected the Kingdom’s international reputation and triggered a lot of complaints from foreign workers.

There are about eight million foreign workers from 120 countries in the Kingdom.

Sharief Awad Al-Hobailey, CEO of Jeddah Center for Law and Arbitration, said wrong implementation of the existing sponsorship system was the reason for many problems. “If the sponsor and the foreign worker had abide by its rules the picture would have been different and much better,” he added.

Ahmed Al-Yahya, a former ministry undersecretary and an expert in labor issues, said the International Labor Organization (ILO) criticized the sponsorship system in Gulf countries with regard to workers’ rights. “We should study legal, security and social aspects before taking a decision to cancel the sponsorship system,” he said.


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Agencies
March 24,2025

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The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the tight Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip is pushing the coastal territory closer to an acute hunger crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini made the remarks in a social media post, in which he noted that the siege, which is preventing food, medicines, water and fuel from entering the region, has lasted longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war.

Israel has banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 4, following the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire and an agreement with Hamas resistance movement on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners.

Lazzarini warned that Gaza’s population depends on imports via Israeli-occupied territories for their survival.

“Every day that passes without the entry of aid means more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread & deprivation deepens,” he said.

“Every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis,” the UNRWA chief noted.

Lazzarini described the banning of aid as a collective punishment on Gaza’s population – the vast majority of which are children, women and ordinary men.

He called for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to be brought into Gaza “uninterrupted and at scale.”

Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 50,021 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 113,274 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

On November 21 last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its deadly war on the blockaded coastal sliver.

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News Network
March 28,2025

qudsday.jpg

Millions of people across Iran and the world took to the streets on International Quds Day, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and head of the Intifada Committee in Tehran, stated that rallies began at 10:00 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) in over 900 cities across Iran.

Demonstrators from various walks of life carried Iranian and Palestinian flags, as well as banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Al-Quds Must Be Liberated.” Flags of regional resistance groups, including Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd al-Sha'abi), Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Ansarullah, were also displayed.

Mass rallies were held across West Asia, including in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, as well as in other parts of the world.

Iranian Leaders Condemn Western Stance

Senior Iranian officials participated in the rally in Tehran, where Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf addressed the gathering.

“Iranians have taken to the streets in a massive show of support for Palestine and the Islamic Ummah,” Qalibaf said. “The Palestinian struggle is not just an issue for the Islamic world but a lesson for all of humanity.”

He criticized the West’s response to Israeli actions in Gaza, calling it a stain on Western civilization. “These crimes will be remembered as a lasting ignominy, exposing the West’s duplicity in human rights advocacy,” he added.

Qalibaf also defended the October 7, 2023, Palestinian attack on Israeli-occupied territories, describing Operation al-Aqsa Flood as a “rightful and legitimate response to 77 years of oppression by Israel, the U.S., and Britain.” He further described Israel as a “spare regime” dependent on U.S. support.

Quds Day: A Global Symbol of Resistance

Al-Quds Day, observed annually on the last Friday of Ramadan, was established in 1979 by the late Imam Khomeini to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians and oppose Israeli occupation. The event has since become a symbol of resistance, with large rallies held worldwide, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

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News Network
April 7,2025

rafahcity.jpg

Rafah, a city along the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has entirely been “wiped off the map” by Israel’s brutal campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, says the Gaza government media office.

The media office said Sunday in a statement on X that the southern city of Gaza has entirely been demolished to make way for Israel to turn it into a “closed military operations zone."

The statement said Israel’s military forces have been carrying out “horrific massacres against defenseless civilians” in Rafah, creating a “full-fledged humanitarian disaster.”

According to the officials, Israeli forces have destroyed over 90% of homes—more than 20,000 buildings in Rafah.

All of the historical buildings, archaeological sites, museums, modern homes, the civilian infrastructure, the shops, cafes, restaurants, hospitals, schools, and universities have been demolished.

The officials said the regime's forces have also demolished 22 of 24 water wells, including a large water treatment plant and facility that was built 25 years ago by the Canadian government.

“Tens of thousands of families” are now without safe drinking water, and over 85% of the sewage system has been destroyed, raising fears of disease outbreaks, said the statement.

At least 12 medical centers are out of service, including Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, which was reportedly blown up by an explosive robot.

Rafah is “uninhabitable,” now, the media office said.

The Israeli military’s goal, it said, is to “empty the land of its people and alter its geographic and demographic features.”

Rafah, a city that was built over 3,300 years ago, had a population of 171,889. As recently as February, 1.4 million Palestinians took shelter there as a result of Israel’s forced displacement of the population in northern parts of the besieged enclave.

The city, which was once designated as a "safe zone" by Israel's military, has now been reduced to rubble. The regime's military has now seized the ruins of Rafah and ordered every survivor out, to expand its "security buffer zone" along Gaza's borders.

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