The ongoing crackdown on illegal labor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has turned violent, leading to the death and injury of several illegal migrants and Saudi nationals. According to the governor of Riyadh, Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, the province in which clashes broke out between city police and illegal laborers, the clampdown is an effort to reduce unemployment among Saudi citizens and “ensure all residents in [the] country are staying legally.” Since the official announcement that all migrants need to legalize their residency in the Kingdom by Nov. 4, about four million have managed to acquire necessary papers and nearly a million have left the country. But even at the conclusion of this operation, it would be naïve to believe that the Kingdom can permanently resolve the issue of illegal foreign labor. It can do better by further reforming the legal framework, which forces migrant domestic workers to join the “illegal” labor market.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement titled, “Dispatches: Saudi Should Crack Down on Flawed Laws, Not Migrants.” The brief poses an important question: “Why, in a country that so tightly regulates its foreign workforce, do so many workers risk arrest and deportation by working illegally?” The argument used to answer this question may be old, but it remains sound.

In the current legal employment system, an employer of a foreign worker, who serves as the sponsor of the latter, does not only control his or her employee’s working conditions and physical mobility. The employer also has full control over the worker’s ability to work on a second job, switch employers or return to his or her home. A worker’s work permit and legal residency are contingent upon his or her sponsor, whose consent is also crucial for obtaining an exit visa, which allows him or her to depart the Kingdom. Additionally, as they are largely excluded from the country’s labor laws, migrant domestic workers are victims of abuse and exploitation. In the absence of institutions or legal mechanisms to help them claim their rights, they break out of the legal employment system and become illegal.

Needless to say, this method may not be the only route to the illegal labor market of the Kingdom, nor does this article aim to justify foreign workers’ illegal behavior. But it is crucial to keep this background in mind as we discuss the current situation in Saudi Arabia, which has turned deadly and has strained diplomatic relations between the Kingdom and one labor-supplying country, Ethiopia.

Although they will not be the focus here, divergent narratives exist on the breakout and handling of recent clashes in Riyadh. More importantly, the situation has inspired public dialogue over the rights of illegal migrants in a country which has yet to afford human rights to its legal domestic workers. The Twitter campaign #SomeoneTellSaudiArabia has called international attention to the precarious situation of illegal Ethiopians being targeted by Saudi police. The online discourse has taken mainly two forms, although a third form, which has turned racist and departed from the topic, is deliberately ignored. Those who support the authorities’ actions point out that illegal migrants engage in unlawful activities, disturbing the stability of the society and are, more importantly,  illegal. On the other hand, those condemning the violent crackdown demand, at minimum, a dignified arrest of workers.

The government of Ethiopia has also condemned the brutal crackdown which has reportedly killed several Ethiopians, and Ethiopia has called for official investigations by Saudi Arabia. The Foreign Minister, Tedros Adhanom said: “This is unacceptable … We are also happy to take our citizens, who should be treated with dignity while they are there.” Operating with an initial budget of 50 million ETB, or [tooltip href="https://www.google.com/search?q=9.7+million+AED+to+USD" tooltip="2.6 million USD"]9.7 million AED[/tooltip], the government has committed to repatriate all its illegal citizens from Saudi Arabia.

However, the current battle to protect victims of human rights violations during the crackdown should not be isolated from the general war to extend equal labor rights, legal protection and dignity to domestic workers in the country. Complementary to global efforts to raise the status of domestic workers, governments should focus on establishing bilateral agreements with Saudi Arabia that ensure the safety and legal protection of their citizens. They should lobby for and effect necessary changes to key policies in the employment system which currently make workers vulnerable to abuse and illegal behavior.

The government of Saudi Arabia has recently taken important legislative measures to protect rights of domestic workers. New regulation has criminalized domestic abuse and outlined minimum working arrangements that both employers and employees need to respect. According to HRW, the government is also reviewing the Kafala sponsorship system, which is a source of the power imbalance between migrant workers and abusive employers. Similar legal reforms and their proper implementation are of paramount importance to making the legal labor market safe and habitable, and thereby to sustainably reduce illegal labor in the Kingdom.