Saudi: Heavy penalties for hiring female ‘ghost workers’

September 21, 2014

Jeddah, Sep 21: The Ministry of Labor has warned it would punish companies hiring "ghost" women workers to boost their Saudization quotas, including heavy financial penalties, cutting off all services from the Human Resources Development Fund, and banning them from hiring new staff.

The move comes as the ministry prepares to launch the third phase of its feminization campaign. This starts on Oct. 25 to include all stores with fewer than five workers and covering women’s perfumes, maternity wear, abayas, shoes, bags, clothes and fabrics.

Fahad bin Sulaiman Al-Takhifi, undersecretary and assistant for special programs at the ministry, said: “Any Saudi employee who cooperates with a company or institution to register as a ghost worker will be denied support for a period of three years for the first offense and five years for the second.”

“Companies will be fined between SR3,000 and SR10,000 for each illegal employee, and may be refused approval to renew iqamas and transfer services for employees,” he said.

Meanwhile, the director of the Khadijah bint Khuwaylid Women’s Center, Basmah Omair, said the third phase would create thousands of new jobs for women, and help reduce unemployment levels.

According to the Hafiz program, more than 1.5 million women are unemployed.

Abdullah Al-Maasoum, director of the Saudi Business Center, said the Labor Ministry should cancel the commercial licenses of employers who hire ghost workers. However, the rate of fake employment has fallen over the last three years, he said.

Speaking to Arab News, he said: "Several small and medium enterprises resorted to this fake employment of Saudis, to get more recruitment visas from the ministry. But starting from 2011, these companies stopped doing so to avoid being penalized."

Meanwhile, Saad Al-Asmari, a member of the youth business committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Arab News: "Several young Saudi workers should run their own business. However, many Saudis refuse to work at small enterprises that offer low monthly salaries. Therefore, it is hard to ensure a high rate of Saudization at these companies."

However, Rana Al-Mansour, a Saudi businesswoman, said she has succeeded in hiring more Saudi women at her clothes stores. "I have three branches in Jeddah. Ninety percent of my staff members are Saudi women. Most Saudi women will accept working in the private sector for salaries between SR3,000 and SR5,000."

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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