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[sheikher]

High-tech help offered to track absconding foreign workers

By BENJAMIN JOFFE-WALT | THE MEDIA LINE
Published: Aug 8, 2010 21:54 Updated: Aug 8, 2010 21:54

Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia are being tracked by a new text messaging service offered through the Kingdom�s Passport and Social Affairs departments.

Al-Elm, an information security company based in Riyadh, is providing Saudi citizens with the ability to sign up for real time SMS text message updates should their foreign workers attempt to escape or formally change their occupation with Saudi authorities. Saudis can sign up for the text message notification service through their bank...

Al-Elm�s text message notifications services came to light last month, when women�s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar revealed Al-Elm was providing a text message service to Saudi men to inform them should any dependent leave the country... [see below]

Foreign workers typically enter Saudi Arabia on a work visa sponsored by a local individual or company, which is then responsible for renewing the sponsored worker�s visa and residency permit. Rights groups say this sponsorship system makes foreign workers overly dependent on their employers, who can use their power over the workers through exploitation and abuse.

A businessman in Saudi Arabia, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the use of text messages to monitor foreign workers in real time would make life much more difficult for workers who find themselves in abusive or vulnerable situations.

�It does make life more difficult for the absconding worker,� he told The Media Line. �In the case of larger employers, it�s hard to keep track of all your sponsored workers and it�s possible that people�s status has changed without the sponsor knowing. So if, for example, a worker is in a remote site and decided he doesn�t want to be there anymore for whatever reason and takes off, before it may take his sponsor a long time before he found out that his worker had run away. Now it will be much quicker.�

�The nature of the system is inherently unfair to foreign workers,� he continued. �The way the rules in this country work, when you come into the country for employment, you are sponsored by your employer, whether your employer is a proprietorship company or an individual family like you are a driver or a domestic worker.�

etc @ http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article97871.ece



Wife-tracker

I am currently on a family vacation in Italy but I had to post what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent my husband. Apparently they have a new service where they send the male guardian a text every time a �dependent� leaves the country. They don�t state which country the dependent left for but simply state that they did leave. My husband tells me he got the same text when I left for Germany. I am an adult woman that has been earning my own income for over a decade now but according to the Saudi government, I am a dependent till the day I die because of my gender...

etc @ http://saudiwoman.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/posting-from-rome/


Saudi technology guards against women escaping

By BENJAMIN JOFFE-WALT / THE MEDIA LINE
07/25/2010 15:58

Air flight will trigger SMS to 'guardian.'

When women�s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar flew out of Saudi Arabia last week for a holiday in Italy with her family, she was hoping for a brief respite from what she describes as the �gender apartheid kingdom.�

She wasn�t so lucky.

As she left, her husband received an automated SMS text message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing him that his wife, legally considered his �dependant� under Saudi Arabia�s strict gendered guardianship system, had left the country.

Al-Huwaidar�s husband received the same text, she learned last week, when she had left Saudi Arabia on another recent trip to Germany.

�It is sad how Saudis use technology in a way not intended to be used for,� she told The Media Line. �In Saudi Arabia, technology brings more restrictions and misery! They use it to have more control over people�s lives, especially women.�

etc @ http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=182543

[Markemark]

Now doesn't it make u think of C=ant a kinte and ole Chicken George- when the former tried to escape from his white slave master.
I bet that beery white slave owner just wished he had this text messaging service ure talking about.
But Islam's the new liberation theology right?
What a fcking joke.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

This is new to people? I get pesky little email messages from the foreign ministry every time my wife and child leave and enter the U.A.E...when they're by my side... Is this a saudi attempt to play catch-up with its neighbor?

NCTBA

[trapezius]

I wish they would text me every time my toddler daughter tried to escape through the front door to experience the greatness outside

[baklodhi]

First of all relating and assuming txt message alert to Islamic Shariah law is the biggest mistake from your end. If Saudi are doing it that doesnt necessarily mean that it is in Islamic law. Secondly Debating in relation with Male as a Guardian is not supressing the woman!. As this phenomenon is not practiced in west, hence they end up in so many debates like : who is the father of the child? my wife is really my wife? etc . As an adult woman claim she does not have to tell her partner/boyfriend/husband where she is going and what she is doing, It indeed gave her freedom but freedom which resulted in paranoa, dis honesty and so many broken relationships and to be in a longterm relationship for life is non existance. Think before you speak, research before you make a statement, you are making your self a joke out here.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Uh-oh...another apologist on the board...

Be careful folk, the thought police are about! As for myself, I think that the k.o.p. is a verdant jungle and the rivers flow with milk and honey...

NCTBA

[baklodhi]

you have been tracked...

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Good on ya... I likes someone wid' a sense of humour...God knows, I don't have one...

NCTBA

[veiledsentiments]