Why the Embassy Wasn’t Entirely Wrong on Hunger Strikers’ Case, Rasheed Abou Alsamh

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The dramatic hunger strike by 16 Filipino workers at the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, which started on Dec. 14, ended after eight days on Sunday night when Philippine Ambassador Bahnarim Guinomla invited in the diplomatic police to escort the workers off the premises.

Migrante, the sectoral party for migrant workers, immediately seized upon this action and denounced the ambassador and other Philippine diplomats in less than savory terms. “The Philippine diplomatic post is no longer a sanctuary for Filipinos and the officials of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh should be recalled from their posts because of the shameless way the hunger strike of ‘stranded’ overseas Filipino workers was effectively terminated,” said Migrante in a press statement.

I spoke to Ambassador Guinomla by phone on Christmas Eve, and he had a different story to tell. “We exerted maximum tolerance during the entire sit-in,” he explained. “We gave them crackers, coffee and hot water. They were getting food and cigarettes sent in from outside the embassy, even though they were supposedly on hunger strike. We tried to talk with them on a daily basis, but they kept demanding to be repatriated as a group.”

This was an impossible demand, the ambassador explained to me, as they all had different sponsors and worked for different companies. Admittedly, they had all grievances with their employers ranging from unpaid and delayed salaries, lack of iqamas (ID cards), and contract violations. But each complaint still had to be acted upon individually, something the strikers didn’t seem to grasp.

“They kept saying they wanted us to get them exit visas overnight, so they could all go home together. We explained to them that we couldn’t and that we would try to help them individually, but they refused,” said a perplexed Guinomla. “What can we do if they refuse our help?”

The ambassador admits that the 16 workers were quite weak after eight days of hunger strike, and said that is why they were taken to a local hospital by the police for a check-up. Unfortunately, none of the workers had enough money to pay the SR100 per person fee that the hospital wanted, so no check-ups took place. The police then took them to their station and had them sign undertakings, written in Arabic, that they wouldn’t disturb the Philippine Embassy again and that their problems were between them and their employers. I must point out here that this is standard legal practice in the Kingdom to have claimants sign such undertakings.

The workers were then set free and allowed to remain in Riyadh. As Migrante pointed out in their press release, it was 6 degrees Celsius at night, since it is winter in Riyadh, which only added to the embassy’s image of being insensitive and cruel.

But as I see it, no embassy of any country is supposed to serve as a long-term refuge for distressed workers. That they were allowed to stay at the embassy in Riyadh for eight days is a sign of Filipino tolerance.

Rather than camp out in the embassy, distressed Filipino workers should have refuge centers that they can go to, run by the Philippine Embassy and Consulate in Riyadh and Jeddah, where Philippine labor officials would help them file legal cases against abusive employers in labor courts. These centers would also give them a place to sleep and eat while they waited for their cases to be heard.

Centers for runaway workers used to operate in Jeddah and Riyadh until a few years ago when they were shut down under pressure from the host government. I think the Philippine government should lobby to have them reopened, in view of the fact that labor abuses here seem to be growing.

Centers for runaway Filipino maids still operate in Riyadh and Jeddah, with similar centers run by the Indonesian Embassy for their own runaway domestic helpers.

The other part of this whole equation are the abusive Saudi employers who cheat their employees of their salaries, delay salaries for months on end and make their employees work 12 hours a day without any kind of overtime pay. The Saudi ministries of labor, justice, interior and foreign affairs should form a task force to swiftly enforce the country’s labor laws and severely punish employers who repeatedly abuse their workers. Cancellation of commercial registrations and jail terms would quickly get the attention of abusive employers, forcing them to toe the line of basic human decency.

We Saudis have to stop treating foreign workers like virtual slaves if we want to join the ranks of progressive nations. Unfortunately, the abuse of foreign workers by some continues, and as long as it does, we can expect to see more hunger strike sit-ins at embassies in Riyadh.