'The World Will Know the True Face of MBS.' One Migrant Worker’s Fight for Justice in Saudi Arabia
How the 'new' Saudi Arabia still runs on 'modern-day slavery.'
Ahmed Abdul Majeed arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1981, a young Indian man joining the ranks of millions of migrant workers who, for all the kingdom’s vast oil wealth, are the other engine of the Saudi economy. He became a senior sales executive in Riyadh for the kingdom’s largest travel agency, Al Tayyar Travel—a busy job serving a demanding, elite clientele that included members of the Saudi royal family, diplomats and wealthy businessmen, some of whom he worked with for decades.
Forty years later, in his early 60s, Abdul Majeed tried to leave Saudi Arabia after he was abruptly fired at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as his wife back in India was gravely ill. But like millions of other foreign and migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, he was at the mercy of the kafala—meaning “sponsorship”—system, which gives Saudi employers near-complete control over their …
