Migrants rights in Saudi Arabia Through the Universal Periodic Review

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a key mechanism that assesses, encourages, and broadens a country’s human rights record. By utilizing reports submitted by the national government, compiled reports by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and an OHCHR compilation of trustworthy information from other stakeholders,  a country can actively promote and implement human rights within its borders. Any UN member state can submit questions during the review and make recommendations. The state under review is responsible for implementing the recommendations from the final report, and ideally, each state should report progress on prior recommendations in subsequent reviews.

On January 22, 2024, Saudi Arabia underwent its fourth review cycle. A total of 136 States submitted 377 recommendations, covering a wide range of issues such as the right to freedom of expression, the prohibition of torture, women’s rights,  the death penalty, and migrant rights. Today, we will focus on the recommendations related to migrant rights, several of which are renewals of recommendations that the Kingdom supported during its third cycle in 2018 but have yet to be implemented.

Like the other GCC countries, Saudi Arabia has historically been a popular destination for migrant workers, particularly from Asia, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa. However, the Kingdom has one of the lowest ratification rates for core international human rights treaties. Specifically, it has refrained from ratifying key instruments related to migrant rights and has not ratified the main instruments relevant to immigration detention and protection against arbitrary detention, including the Refugee Convention (1951), the Convention on Statelessness (1954), the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961), and the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (2003).

The nation upholds the kafala (visa sponsorship) labor system, which links workers to their employers and establishes conditions that make foreign workers vulnerable to workplace abuses, as well as arrest, detention, and deportation. Additionally, efforts to reduce the migrant population in the country have led to the initiation of various mass deportation campaigns. One of the most severe campaigns, known as “A Homeland With No Illegals,” led to the detention of approximately 670,000 individuals who also reported instances of ill-treatment during their confinement.

Reforms were implemented in Saudi Arabia in March 2021, with the introduction of a new labor law that allowed some categories of migrant workers to change jobs without their sponsor’s permission under specific circumstances. However, the reforms do not go far enough to dismantle the abusive kafala system. Furthermore, the labor law excluded migrant workers not covered by its provisions, such as domestic workers and farmers, who are considered the least protected and most vulnerable to abuse. In July 2022, additional conditions were introduced to enhance migrant workers’ rights, broadening the range of beneficiaries and simplifying eligibility criteria. However, despite these changes, migrant workers still lack adequate protection under the country’s labor law.

ECDHR has observed that only a limited number of recommendations from the third cycle have been implemented. In light of this situation, we strongly advocate dismantling the kafala system and implementing both the previous and new recommendations to address the existing gaps and improve the rights of migrants. This can be achieved by starting ratifying international treaties such as the Refugee Convention, the Convention on Statelessness, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, a critical step for the protection of migrant rights.

Amnesty has recently compiled and released the third set of recommendations endorsed by Saudi Arabia regarding migrant rights. Here are some of these recommendations, along with an assessment of the progress made: