KSA to Punish Illegal Foreign Workers and their Employer

The increasing numbers of illegal foreign workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) urge the Shoura Council, the parliament of the KSA, to take drastic action in enumerating undocumented foreign workers and employers who hire overstaying foreign workers.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) recently issued an advisory about a Royal Decree on residency that punishes both the Saudi employer and the illegal foreign workers found violating the law.

The Shoura Council approved a law to publish the names of violators of the Kingdom's residency law in a newspaper where they reside. The law also covers citizens who hire overstaying foreigners for work.

The Royal Decree also states that illegal workers should fine SR50,000 and be jailed in one year and SR100,000 and two years imprisonment for employers who will be caught hiring overstaying foreign workers.

Due to the recently passed law, Filipinos aspiring to acquire work in the Kingdom are advised to get all the necessary documents and make sure that you are properly before entering the country to avoid imprisonment and be fined.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), on the other hand, tightens their campaign against illegal recruitment while Labor Secretary Arturo Brion expressed his concern about the increasing rapacity of illegal recruiters in victimizing innocent people desiring to land an overseas job.

Brion said that promising a non-existent overseas employment without the required government license for legitimate recruitment is the worst form of illegal recruitment of people.

“We will give the strongest focus against this form of illegal recruitment in order to protect the unwary and at the same time, penalize the guilty,” he said.

He also said that any legitimate recruiters caught violating the POEA Rules and Regulations and the provisions of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, such violations are treated separately and penalized, as appropriate, under the processes of the POEA.

He added that the way to mitigate and eliminate such kind of illegal recruitment is not by reducing the existing number of legitimate recruiters, but to strongly enforce and implement the law against the violations that hurt the unwary.

This article was first published in www.ofwguide.com on July 19, 2006