The Human Rights Watch has urged Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to jointly investigate the abuse and apparent trafficking of Nepali domestic workers who agree to work in Kuwait but are instead trafficked into Saudi Arabia against their will and abandoned there.

Issuing a press statement in New York Wednesday, it cited a report in the Saudi daily Arab News on May 26 that said Kuwaiti employers hire Nepali domestic workers and illegally transport them to Saudi Arabia against their will, and claimed the newspaper report was confirmed by a Nepali diplomat in Riyadh.　

The Kuwaiti employers, the statement says, leave the workers with Saudi families who are often related to the Kuwaitis and who usually pay a fee to them. The workers are then forced to work for the Saudi families.
"Saudi prosecutors have new legal tools to bring human traffickers to justice and should use them in this case," the statement quoted Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch as saying. "And the reports about abuse and trafficking of these Nepali workers urgently put Kuwait on notice that it needs to pass its own anti-trafficking law."

The statement quoted to the unnamed Nepali embassy official as saying that it was difficult to hire domestic workers in Saudi Arabia because of a short supply. The Kuwaitis who transport the workers for a fee from Saudi employers apparently are exploiting that shortage.

Saudi Arabia passed an anti-trafficking law in July 2009 while the Kuwaiti parliament is considering a draft of an anti-trafficking law. Both countries have drafted, though not yet passed, legislation protecting domestic workers´ labor rights, the statement adds.

More than two million foreign domestic workers are employed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and are at high risk of abuse and exploitation due to gaps in labor laws and restrictive immigration practices.
The Arab News article said that 50,000 Nepali domestic workers are in Saudi Arabia. It reported that Saudis employ Nepali domestic workers who were recruited to work in Kuwait and then transported to Saudi Arabia without their consent in violation of Saudi labor laws.

Because of the difficulty of arranging for the illegally hired workers´ departure from the kingdom when the Saudi families no longer wish to employ them, and to avoid paying fines for the illegal hiring, the families often abandon the workers at the Nepali embassy, the statement cites the paper as reporting.
The statement quoted the Nepali official as saying that many of the Nepali women arriving at the embassy appeared to have suffered abuse, including sexual abuse. The official mentioned that Saudi authorities typically facilitate the repatriation of these domestic workers, but do not investigate Saudi employers who illegally employ or abuse them.

"After the maid is dropped off at the embassy here, they have to go to ´deportation,´ [detention] where the authorities investigate if there are any criminal complaints against her," the statement attributed the Nepali diplomat as saying.

"The authorities typically grant the domestic workers exit stamps. But they do not look into the Saudi family. Even when the girls have been raped and are pregnant."

Published on: 9 June 2010 | Republica