Running from pillar to post

It has only been about three years that Saudi women have been allowed to sponsor their non-Saudi husbands and children. It was a monumental step in an effort to even the scales in a system that pretty much allowed Saudi men to marry whomever they please and afford their non-Saudi wives and non-Saudi children citizenship.
Saudi women haven’t achieved that kind of status, but now they are allowed to sponsor their non-Saudi husbands and children. It helps considerably that the local passport offices are staffed with professionals, both in the men and women’s sections, who truly want to ease the process of obtaining an Iqama (residence permit) for their non-Saudi family members. My personal experience has taught me that passport officials are there to help.
However, there is still much wrong with the system, which places undue burden on Saudi women — both financially and emotionally. There is more than meets the eye in what is required for women to sponsor their non-Saudi families.
There is a recent case in which through a glitch in the visa process, a Saudi woman’s daughter, who was born in another country, had her Saudi visa sponsored by her non-Saudi husband. The Saudi consulate granted the visa and the husband and daughter entered Saudi Arabia without any problems. The woman was then required to transfer her daughter’s sponsorship from the father/husband to her. But first the daughter’s Iqama must be issued under the father’s sponsorship. Then the daughter’s Iqama is transferred again to the mother’s.
It sounds cumbersome, and it is. Still, the red tape is even more convoluted. In order to change the daughter’s sponsorship from the non-Saudi father to the Saudi mother the father must have health insurance. It doesn’t matter that he may already have insurance. If he doesn’t have an insurance number that can be placed in the government’s computer system, then he must buy a new insurance policy from a private company and have the company file the new policy with the passport department.
There are dozens of such small companies in the Al-Kandarah District. Most of them are lined up on a single narrow and crowded street and serve expats. The prices, however, are outrageously expensive. Infants and expats over the age of 50 pay higher rates than those expats who are in their 20s. In the instance of the Saudi woman bringing her daughter and husband into the country, the price for health insurance was a one-time fee of SR 2,250 for the father.
What exactly is the family paying for? A number. That is then recorded in the government’s computer system. Many of these insurance companies offer insurance long enough to have the data entered into the government computer system, and then the insurance is canceled and issued to the next expat looking for insurance. The policyholder doesn’t get a copy of the policy and if he does it’s good for nothing, as most of the good hospitals won’t take it.
The Saudi wife has no alternative but to purchase the insurance in order to register her husband as a sponsor for the daughter, and then have the daughter’s sponsorship transferred to her. In all, between government and insurance company fees, the entire process could reach SR5,000.
This, of course, is an almost impossible amount of money for many Saudi wives and mothers. If a daughter enters the country with a single entry 90-day visa and the mother cannot afford to pay the exorbitant insurance fees, the daughter and non-Saudi husband will find themselves on a plane to their home country without the mother.
While the government system is designed to protect families to ensure they have adequate health insurance and do not become a burden on the health sector, these storefront insurance companies appear to be unregulated and can charge any fee with impunity.
As one official explained to me one day, the government tries not to get involved with how insurance companies do their business so additional burdens are not placed on families. The priority is to get the non-Saudi family members sponsored in a timely and efficient manner, and to do that is to have these companies issue the vital insurance policy number into the government system. Granted, the whole process can take just part of an afternoon, but it makes little difference if the families don’t have the money to complete the requirements.