Saudi Treatment of Indian Employees

Every country treats its immigrant workers with dignity. This has been the case all over the world, excepting some countries in West Asia, especially countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is primarily due to the fact that the national government over there never bothers to honour the deal between the employee and employer. In other countries, the agreement between the employer and the immigrant workers are vetted by the governments and the labour law become applicable to them. Due to this reason, the employers have started treating the immigrant workers as their slaves. This seems to be the reason behind the atrocities on Indian workers going for the work in that West Asian country (Saudi Arabia).

In Saudi Arabia, the citizens get the prominence over everything else. No matter, how much contribution the immigrant workforce makes for taking that country’s economy to greater heights. Due to the presence of the oil fields in its territory, people over there have become very rich and arrogant. They believe that everything else can be bought with this money. A similar mood is echoed in the administration driven in that country. It is very much expected as such people are running the country.  In order to remain in power, the ruling dynasty has never bothered to change the mindset of people in the corridors of power. Hence, the labour laws enacted are very vague. Normally, those laws do not apply to immigrant workers as many pacts they enter into are outside the purview of the law. The government of the day does not bother to reign in those arrogant employers who try to exert their dominance over the hapless employees. As a result, the prospective employers have become arrogant and favour employment contracts that are outside the law of that country.

Most of the time, the government of that country takes side with the employers or feign ignorance about the atrocities committed on the immigrant workers who risk their lives to work there to earn an extra penny for their households. At other times, the government authorities cook up stories to implicate the workers who dare to report the crimes on them by their employers. We have seen this getting enacted in the case of a Tamil Nadu woman who worked with an employer. She dared to report the atrocities committed on her to the Saudi government authorities. In retaliation, the angry employer got her hands chopped. However, the government claimed that she jumped from a storied building when her employer tried to catcher when she was smuggling something out of the house. With the government on their sides, the private employers have become quite arrogant and dictate terms while interviewing the prospective employees and force them to sign agreements that are null and void before the law of that land.

The people who are going to Saudi Arabia should go to that country through the legal channel. The government of India and Indian Consulate are involved in handling the immigration cases. When employment comes through this channel, the work visa is guaranteed for the better treatment at the workplace. When the workers are within the ambit of the law, they are expected to get better treatment and work pay. The plight of the matter is that most people going for work in that country do so through unauthorized means. They fall into the traps laid by the unauthorized agents who have contacts in that country. On reaching that country, they make sure that workers are allotted to those employers who are notoriously low paymasters. Hence, the workers going to that country should approach only those agents who have been empaneled by the External Affairs Ministry of government of India. Even if they have to pay some more extra penny while following the legal route, they are ensuring that decent compensation and better treatment given to them at their workplace.