Saudi Arabia has passed a new law which places significant penalties on human trafficking, reports Arab News. For the purposes of the law, trafficking is defined to include ‘holding a person under control for sexual abuse, forced labor, involuntary begging, slavery or slavery-like practices and enforced organ removal or medical experimentation’.

While this law may do much to reduce the complaints leveled at the country by the US State Department and various NGOs, current labor practices, particularly dealing with unskilled foreign laborers, come close to ’slavery-like practices’. New laws for those workers and for domestic workers are coming along, but still remain to be implemented. The laws will also need to be enforced, of course, and that will be a much harder effort.

15 years for human trafficking
Arab News

MADINAH: The Council of Ministers on Monday passed an anti-human trafficking law that calls for tough punishment for people involved in the crime, including a jail sentence of up to 15 years and a maximum fine of SR1 million, Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja said.

The Cabinet meeting at Taiba Palace in Madinah, which was presided over by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, decided to establish a high-level ministerial-level committee to combat human trafficking.

Khoja said the committee would follow up the conditions of victims of human trafficking in order to ensure that they were not harmed. “The committee will also coordinate with the authorities concerned for the repatriation of such victims to their countries. It can also make recommendations to allow such victims to remain in the Kingdom after regularizing their residency permits if required,” he said.
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