Call to scrap sponsorship system AL-AHSA – A plan is underway to have human rights as a subject at university level, according to Abdulrahman Al-Enad, a member of the Shoura Council and the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR). He said that the plan is now at an advanced stage at the Ministry of Higher Education. In a paper he presented recently at the Al-Jouf Literary Club entitled “Freedom of Expression in the Human Rights System,” Al-Enad said he expected the project would be approved soon, following royal approval. Al-Enad said there was also a proposal at the NSHR to include the subject at all stages of general education. “The culture of human rights has become an important issue for Saudi Arabia receiving much attention in the recent years,” he said. Meanwhile, Al-Enad said the society has called for the scrapping of the sponsorship system in the Kingdom and “it should be replaced with a more developed system.” In 2009, Bahrain said it would scrap its existing sponsorship system for foreign workers in the hope of reducing its need for expatriate labor. The sponsorship system in the Gulf countries, under which employers do the sponsoring, has long been criticized by human rights groups for placing workers at the whim of their employers, who usually take their passports. “[Despite] the progress achieved in allowing foreign workers to move freely within the country without permission from their sponsor, holding a foreign worker's passport and not allowing him [or her] to travel, except with the sponsor's permission, is a restriction of freedom,” Al-Edan said. The human rights body has so far received over 14,000 human rights complaints from Saudi nationals and expatriates from various regions in the country, he said. The majority of complaints lack completion of procedures and this is due to the complainant's ignorance about the regulations concerning the case or how to proceed with a complaint when human rights were violated, he said. He said the NSHR has the moral authority to challenge government officials about human rights violations at their departments and declare its stance about the violations. This has made the NSHR gain the confidence and respect of many human rights commissions, organizations, and societies abroad that would refer to it about human rights issues in the Kingdom, he said. International human rights bodies have referred to over 15 cases published by the society this year, he said.
