Yemen has become more involved in child trafficking since its workers were expelled from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s following the first Gulf War. The couple moved to the United States in 2000 accompanied by their maid. [4] Following the state conviction, federal charges against Al-Turki were dropped.[5]. [3], Saudi Arabians who travel or reside abroad may be accompanied by servants who are held in servitude. [citation needed] Saudi Arabia lacks laws criminalizing most trafficking offenses. In November 2018, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) sponsored and facilitated a training on victims’ rights in trafficking cases for 40 participants from relevant government entities; the program covered victim identification and protection, and the role of law enforcement in these areas. The government did not report how many victims it identified as a result of the calls, or if it initiated any investigations of trafficking crimes resulting from the calls during the reporting period; the call center received approximately 1.3 million general inquiries and requests, labor disputes, employment complaints, and tips, which helped authorities identify four trafficking cases during the previous year. The government reportedly encouraged victims to assist in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking offenders, and the law entitled trafficking victims to legal assistance, security protection, translation services, and the right to immediate repatriation or continued residence in-country until resolution of the case, in addition to medical and psychological care, shelter, and recovery; as in previous years, it did not report how many victims accessed these provisions during the reporting year. Background. The Kingdom’s migrant laborer population continued to be the largest group at risk to human traffickers, particularly female domestic workers due to their isolation inside private residences and subjection to employer abuse. The government similarly did not take law enforcement action against trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Saudi Arabia, or take any steps to provide victims of sex trafficking with protection. There are many NGOs working with trafficking victims. Kuwait, another affluent nation, also Tier 3 for the same time period, is neck and neck with Saudi Arabia for labor abuses. An international organization reported all parties to the conflict used both boys and girls as uniformed soldiers in combat and to guard checkpoints and military facilities during the reporting period. The case was a high-profile one in Saudi Arabia, where the press portrayed him as a victim of Islamophobia. Trafficking perpetrators include businesses of all sizes, private families, recruitment companies in both Saudi Arabia and labor-sending countries, and organized criminal elements. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking offenses. The laws of Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain do not contain express provisions that exempt trafficking victims from prostitution-related crimes or … It published information pertaining to trafficking indicators on relevant government websites, and distributed leaflets with similar material to all official stakeholders, but it did not have a standardized mechanism to identify victims and refer them to care. Religious leaders have preached in mosques sermons about the evil of abusing employees. The criminal gangs divide the trafficked children into three groups, some of whom are sold for forced labor, others for sexual exploitation and the rest for begging, he added. Instead, victims of human trafficking are often punished because they are viewed as illegal immigrants. The Government of Saudi Arabia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Human trafficking is considered a contemporary form of slavery. Al-Turki's wife, Sarah Khonaizan, who plead guilty to reduced state and federal charges, is to be deported from the US. During the reporting period, the government reported investigating 79 potential trafficking cases and prosecuting 42 of these cases, which involved 43 defendants and 113 victims; this marked a decrease from its combined investigation and prosecution of 177 cases during the previous reporting period. The couple was originally charged in federal court with involuntary servitude, punishable in cases involving sexual assault with life in prison. “Ratifying international conventions and treaties on human trafficking” is worthless unless implemented, … Non-payment or late payment of wages remain a recurring complaint from foreign workers in the Kingdom, while employers withholding workers’ passports also remains a significant problem. Officials permitted victims to obtain restitution from the government and file civil suits against trafficking offenders; however, such settlements generally occurred outside of civil court proceedings, through government-supported mediation efforts, and did not entail criminal prosecution or, in most cases penalties or interest on the amounts of unpaid wages in dispute. • Undertake serious efforts to prevent penalization of trafficking victims by proactively screening for trafficking among those arrested for immigration violations, prostitution, or those who flee abusive employers and face counter-charges and deportation. According to officials and statistics, 900 children were smuggled from Yemen to Saudi Arabia during 2006.12 Lebanese children are trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. With respect to human trafficking, Saudi Arabia was designated, together with Bolivia, Ecuador, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Burma, Jamaica, Venezuela, Cambodia, Kuwait, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea, and Togo, as a Tier 3 country by the United States Department of State in its 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 on which this article was originally based. Officials distributed leaflets on trafficking indicators, the anti-trafficking law, and the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers at public cultural events across the Kingdom, such as the Jeddah Book Fair, throughout the year. "Two removed from Saudi diplomatic mansion in McLean after human trafficking accusations", Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, "Trafficking in Persons Report 2017: Tier Placements", "Man was convicted of sexual assaults on housekeeper", "Saudi Gets 27 Years to Life for Enslaving Maid", U.S. Code, Title 18, Chapter 77 Peonage and Slavery, Boston.com - Saudi princess pleads guilty to immigration violations, "Slave-holding and Terror Links in Colorado", Council of Economic and Development Affairs, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Human_trafficking_in_Saudi_Arabia&oldid=1000094078, Articles with dead external links from January 2020, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles needing additional references from September 2015, All articles needing additional references, Articles that may contain original research from September 2015, All articles that may contain original research, Wikipedia articles needing reorganization from September 2015, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Officials did not undertake significant efforts to mitigate the inherent vulnerabilities in its sponsorship-based employment system that exacerbated trafficking risks among the large migrant worker population. In 2004, there were reports of Philippine female domestic workers raped; however, there were no reports of prosecutions. The government offers no legal aid to foreign victims and does not otherwise assist them in using the Saudi criminal justice system to bring their exploiters to justice. Saudi Arabia is a destination country for men and women trafficked for the purposes of involuntary servitude and, to a lesser extent, commercial sexual exploitation. The government maintained limited efforts to protect trafficking victims. In addition, it mandated individual employers of domestic labor to issue prepaid payroll or salary cards as soon as the domestic worker arrived in the Kingdom to ensure a legal working relationship between employer and employee and safeguard employees’ prescribed wages. In Saudi Arabia, begging by women and children remains a problem and a significant vulnerability to forced labor, with reported upticks during the holy month of Ramadan and the Muslim pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah. The government did not report how many Saudi companies were in compliance with the system requirements and what penalties it prescribed to those in noncompliance. Hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers from Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya migrate voluntarily to Saudi Arabia; some fall into conditions of involuntary servitude, suffering from physical and sexual abuse, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, the withholding of travel documents, restrictions on their freedom of movement and non-consensual contract alterations. During the reporting period, the government continued implementation of its WPS, which required employers to pay foreign workers by electronic transfer via a Saudi bank, thereby permitting the government to track disbursements. However, the government prosecuted and convicted few traffickers, did not report efforts to address forced labor despite the significant scale of such crimes in the country, and did not pursue criminal investigations against officials purportedly complicit in trafficking crimes despite allegations throughout the reporting period. The Saudi Government does, however, provide food and shelter for female workers who file complaints or run away from their employers. In Saudi Arabia children are pushed into cheap labor, sex exploitation, and are also used in local militias. [6], Prosecution of the Saudi Arabian employees that abuse the people. Forced labour, sexual exploitation and forced begging by children are the most common types of human trafficking in Saudi Arabia. The 2006 report shows some effort by the Kingdom to address the problems, but continues to classify the Kingdom as a Tier 3 country. The husband was also charged in state court with multiple counts of sexual assault. • Pursue criminal investigations against officials allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes. The Clinton-Silsby Trafficking Scandal And How The Media Covered It Up. The Saudi representative to the useless international forum, the UN, is right about the victims of human trafficking. The government sought to eliminate vulnerabilities in labor recruitment through its deployment of labor inspectors—400 of whom specialized in trafficking crimes—and HRC representatives who conducted an unknown number of field visits to monitor the application of employment and recruitment laws; during the prior year, relevant authorities ordered the closure of 14 recruitment offices and the suspension of operations of 40 others that contravened Saudi Arabia’s labor laws, in addition to the imposition of fines on 227 work places that violated the government’s mid-day work ban during the summer months. Media reported Sudanese officers associated with Sudan’s Rapid Support Force took bribes from families to permit minors to serve as combatants in Yemen during the reporting year. Forms of human trafficking in the Middle East include domestic servitude and forced labor, child trafficking for camel jockeys, and sex trafficking. • Institute regular trainings for government officials on identifying cases of both labor and sex trafficking and how to differentiate between forced labor and labor-related crimes. Some diplomatic representatives reported implementation of existing labor agreements improved the ability of embassies to monitor the labor conditions of their nationals and to identify and address trafficking and other labor-related issues. these children may be sexually exploited in transit or once they arrive in Saudi Arabia. The Government of Saudi Arabia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. It demonstrated mixed progress on implementation of its 2017-2020 national action plan to combat trafficking that focused on monitoring, prevention, building government capacity, inter-ministerial coordination, effective law enforcement, and provision of protective services for victims. Another case involved Princess Buniah Al Saud, niece of Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who was arrested in Orlando, Florida and accused of pushing her Indonesian maid down a flight of stairs. The government did not report efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts but modestly did so for forced labor. Furthermore, during the current reporting period, diplomatic representatives from multiple countries reported a lack of Saudi government oversight over labor recruitment and proper implementation of labor contracts contributed to an unreported number of potential trafficking cases. As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Saudi Arabia. The government did not report increased law enforcement efforts. It launched a new anti-trafficking awareness campaign and continued to employ its Wage Protection System (WPS) to better safeguard domestic workers’ contracts and train relevant officials on the system. Additionally, some migrant workers voluntarily enter into illegal arrangements where they seek freelance work while concurrently paying a Saudi national to sponsor their initial residency permit, thereby becoming vulnerable to extortion and debt-based coercion by their sponsors.
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