Indian expat sends daughter away as she can’t go to school in Kingdom

An Indian national who has been held against his will by his sponsor in the Kingdom for the past 12 years was finally able to send his 18-year-old daughter out of the country to begin her education.
Natasha Nasar boarded a Singapore Airlines flight from Jeddah last Wednesday, as her father looked on in tears, not knowing when they would see each other again.
Natasha, who looks much younger than her age, has never been registered in a proper school, nor has she ever had any school friends.
Since 2007, she has been accompanying her father, Mohammed Nasar, 41, from one labor office to another, to a few courthouses, to a couple of governorates, and even to the offices of the Human Rights Commission.
“She saw everything, she was always with me,” Mohammed said. “Everywhere I traveled, she traveled with me. She saw everything — of every part of my life that was happening here to us, she was a part.”
Natasha looked on with a smile on her face, proud that she had done her part to help her father, yet anxious about leaving him behind.
“I feel excited (to be traveling), but on the other side I feel sad and worried, because I don’t know when I will see my dad again. However, I have no choice but to go home and study,” she said minutes before she was to check in for her flight.
Her father sat quietly with tears in his eyes as she spoke. He had dressed up in a sleek suit — not for his daughter, but to look like a businessman. Any other attire, he believed, might garner unwanted attention from the numerous plainclothes and uniformed police and immigration officials that patrol the airport.
Mohammed is not a criminal, nor is he a wanted man, but he prefers to avoid officials since he has no valid iqama (residence permit).
He alleges that his employer has been playing the labor system and courts to leave him in limbo since 2000, refusing to renew his iqama or give him an exit visa, thereby preventing the transfer of his sponsorship.
His problems first started when he took five days off from work in Al-Baha to tend to his mother who had met with an accident in Makkah. He alleges that he had informed his direct supervisor of the emergency leave, but that a project manager in Al-Baha with a personal grudge against him had decided to report him escaped.
Mohammed said: “Someone from my emoloyer called me when I was in Makkah and told me not to travel anywhere, as the project manager, Nabil, had filed an escape report on my name at Makkah immigration.
“I didn’t wait. I immediately went to the Expatriate Department and met with the director.
“He told me that the only two who could remove an escape report were my sponsor and the regional governor. He advised me to go to the governorate and took my fingerprints in a ledger book. So that’s where I went.”
Mohammed risked arrest by immediately traveling to the Baha governorate, where he resided and worked, to plead his case. An audience with the Baha governor took significant time to arrange.
“Prince Muhammad bin Saud (the former Baha governor) met with me. He understood my situation and ordered that the escape report be canceled by my sponsor,” he said. “My employer said I had to pay SR 2,000. I paid it in 2001 and was given a receipt that stated the money was for transfer of sponsorship, which surprised me.”
Days later, he was informed that his passport could not be found anywhere.
“They told me that they could not find my passport and asked me to wait,” an exasperated Mohammed claimed. “I waited and waited, always letting the Ministry of Interior know of my whereabouts.
“By this point, it had been a few years, and the Al-Baha construction project had finished, but there was still no sign of them canceling the escape report nor giving me my passport.”
Again, Mohammed approached the governor, who understood clearly what was happening and took pity on him and his family. He issued a royal order — a copy of which has been retained by Arab News — to cancel the escape report and to immediately transfer his sponsorship.
Again, Mohammed paid SR 2,000, the fee for escape cancellation, this time at Al-Ahli Bank. He was unsure what had happened to the first SR 2,000.
Two months and considerable trouble later, his escape report was canceled, 11 years after it was filed. He still, however, did not have a valid iqama, necessary to change sponsorship.
In 2008, the employer replied to the royal order issued by the Baha governor, which dictated that Mohammed’s sponsorship be transferred. In the letter that was registered with the Al-Baha Chamber of Commerce, the employer states that Mohammed’s sponsorship would be completed in two months.
It never happened, simply because the person charged with finishing Mohammed’s iqama renewal and transfer of sponsorship paperwork had been evading him since 2008. According to Mohammed, the management is behind it.
He has written numerous letters to and visited with Natasha Baha Gov. Prince Mishari bin Saud, several government officials, the Human Rights Commission and labor court judges, to name a few, all of whom have ordered that his sponsorship be transferred.
The employer replied that it would comply with the order to transfer his sponsorship to his wife's iqama, but the paperwork never got done, as his iqama had yet to be renewed by the same person who was supposed to transfer his sponsorship. There is also little, if any, follow-up done by the relevant authorities once the order had been given.
In a letter dated Dec. 13, 2010, to the managing director of the employer who is also the owner’s son, Mohammed pleaded for mercy.
The letter read: “You are a good human being. I have known you personally when I was working at the PDS department in Riyadh, don’t know what went wrong.
“I can just express with these words the pain me and my family is going through, I never asked (anything of) anyone except to resolve my status problem. Ten years of my life has been wasted. For these 10 years I just request you only for one thing, from your honorable office that to kindly renew my release papers.”
That letter went unanswered.
Arab News made several attempts to reach the owner and managing director by telephone. A receptionist who answered the main number said he was aware of Mohammed’s case and that Arab News should contact human resources. Numerous calls by Arab News to the company’s human resources department in Riyadh went unanswered, as were several messages.
Arab News has retained copies of correspondence between Mohammed and the employer and between Mohammed and various government departments including royal orders and Interior Ministry documents relating to this case.
To date, Mohammed remains without a valid iqama, all his avenues for relief exhausted. He is currently stuck in Jeddah, desperate, and now lonely. The last time he was outside of Saudi Arabia was 20 years ago.