http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=90280&d=22&m=12&y=2006&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Friday, 22, December, 2006 (02, Dhul Hijjah, 1427)
Illegals Seek Piece of Haj Pie
Zainy Abbas, Arab News
Three of the illegal migrants who were arrested while
trying to enter Makkah. (AN photo by Zainy Abbas)
MAKKAH, 22 December 2006 - If you want to get a feel for the
issue of foreign guest workers fleeing their sponsors for greener pastures
inside the Kingdom, all you need to do is monitor the inbound traffic into the
holy city during Haj.
"I came to Makkah to perform Haj and to work," said Arif
(last name withheld), an Indonesian driver who was one of a group of illegal
migrants who were arrested at a checkpoint near the city limits.
"I paid the driver 200 riyals to bring me here," he added. "I
left my sponsor after five months, and paid some other guy 350 riyals to find
me a better job. I was working in Buraidah. He found a better job for me in
Jeddah: 1,000 riyals a month. I tried to come to Makkah because I can make five
times that during the Haj season."
Instead, Arif and about a dozen others who were in custody
with him will be processed and deported.
Service workers who come to the Kingdom under sponsorship,
including maids and drivers, generally earn about SR600($160) to SR800($213) a
month. But once they arrive in the Kingdom, like Arif they can often find
better salaries working illegally, hired by middle and upper class Saudis and
expatriates who don't want to weather the bureaucracy and expense of finding
these workers through official channels.
The workers interviewed this week by Arab News were arrested
trying to smuggle themselves into the lucrative Haj marketplace. Drivers, for
example, can extract a premium for their services during the pilgrimage when
the demand for them peaks. Many of them have come with high expectations. One
migrant worker detained by authorities told Arab News he believed he could make
as much as SR5,000 ($1,333), which is highly improbable regardless of the type
of work these men could find.
Saleh Khalil, an Arab expatriate worker, said that he and his
wife were working with their sponsor in Riyadh for four months but they decided
to look for better opportunities in some other places.
"I contacted a smuggler who said that he was going to
transport me and my wife in his truck from Riyadh to Jeddah," said Khalil. "He
charged me 1,000 riyals for both of us. We hid in the back of the truck among
boxes. We worked in Jeddah for two years."
Khalil said his wife eventually wanted to return home. She
turned herself in to authorities for the "free ticket" home in the form of
deportation. Khalil said he tried to enter Makkah because he could double his
salary working there during the pilgrimage season. He paid a human trafficker
SR300 for his failed attempt. Khalil will now be reunited with his wife back
home (he wouldn't say where he was from) in much the same way she left the
Kingdom, as deportee.
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