LISTEN | 'Inhumane treatment' for South African teachers stranded abroad after job offers

Fully furnished accommodation, top-notch medical aid for the duration of the contract and better working conditions. These are some of the benefits South African teachers say they were promised when they accepted job offers to teach in Saudi Arabia.

However, when they arrived in the Middle Eastern country they endured unbearable living conditions and inhumane treatment. 

A KwaZulu-Natal teacher who arrived in the country only about two weeks ago already is desperate to leave after a contractual dispute with her employer. Meanwhile,  a teacher from Cape Town tells of inhumane treatment.

The 23-year-old Capetonian, who cannot be named, left the country early in September after securing a job through a recruitment agency to teach in Jeddah, only to learn that she would be working in a school which is a two-hour drive from where she stays in the city.

“It has been a journey. I haven't been provided with what they have promised me. For example, they told us that they would get us furnished accommodation and we would stay near the school. But we are in the worst of the worst accommodation,” she said.

She said on her arrival in Jeddah, the bathroom and the air-conditioners were not working and she had to spend most of her first weekend at the mall so she could use the bathroom.

“What is very concerning is that on the first day of the work we got the bus and spent about two hours on the road going to a school outside the city. We had been promised we'd be teaching in Jeddah,” she said. 

After completing her first month, she wasn't paid, prompting her to follow up with the human resources department until they eventually paid her on October 8. She said she paid for her visa and the agency's fees and the employer promised to reimburse her but she hasn't received the money.

With a two-year contract, she has desperately wanted to leave since her first day.

“The way they treated us from day 1 was so inhumane. They treat us as if we are animals and they just don't care. If I had the opportunity to leave, I would — but it is not easy as you need to request an exit visa from the school,” she said. 

The employer would need to sign her exit visa and she would have to pay the flight costs and an administration fee, she said. “They say we will have to pay back the money they spent on us, which was not there in the contract we signed while we were still in South Africa.”  

She said when she accepted the job it seemed like a great opportunity, but with the delayed payments and the living and working conditions, things have not worked out well. It seemed that when the three-month probation lapsed, she would be stuck with the contract.

“Mentally, I am so drained. It's been like an ongoing fight with so much stress. It has affected my mental health to the point where I don't know how much longer I can continue. Also, my family is aware of what is going on and it has affected them,” she said.

A KZN teacher acknowledged that she might have been involved in a contractual dispute with her employer but she went to the South African embassy to seek help after she was kicked out of the cockroach-infested apartment where she had to live with a married couple.

Her employer was allegedly forcing her to sign a two-year contract whereas she had already signed the contract while she was in South Africa. She said the apartment was terrible and she had been staying at a hotel which her employer was supposed to pay for but did not.

“There are many South Africans who have been here only one month and they are absolutely struggling. Four to six people are living in two-bedroom apartments,” she said. 

She said she paid for her own flight and was supposed to be reimbursed but she wasn't because she had stood up for her rights. “Yes, the thing is contractual, but I am saying this is more than just contractual — this is human indecency.”

She said she signed a contract in South Africa but when she arrived in Saudi Arabia the employer wanted her to sign another contract in which she would agree to stay two years while her initial contract was for one.

“I signed a contract in SA so I will honour it. They said 'well if you are not willing to sign this one we will just punish you',” she said, adding that her contract was supposed to end in 2024 but it was changed to 2025.

She said she called the embassy because she didn't have a place to stay from last week Thursday. She told embassy staff that her employer was refusing to give her accommodation, didn't allow her to work and said she would not get paid until she signed the new contract.

“I am staying in a hotel, I had a meeting with the embassy and explained my situation. They registered me as South African in distress because I didn't have a place to sleep and I still don't have a place because the school is not providing me with anything.”

She said she was trying to get out of a terrible situation and had been staying in the hotel under somebody else's name. She feared her situation could get worse as her employer was not responding to her messages and to her request to get an exit visa to leave the country. 

“I just want any kind of exit because I do not intend on coming back here, ever. I have friends here who are trying to help me which is maybe why I survived the past two weeks,” she said. 

The international relations and co-operation department (Dirco) previously told TimesLIVE that the department could not interfere in contractual disputes based on local law.

“No government in the world gets involved in contractual disputes — this is why you have courts of law and lawyers. When you have a [contractual ] dispute with your employer that is where you take it for recourse.”

Meanwhile, the Port Shepstone Human Rights Centre in KZN has appealed to the government to get involved and expressed its concern for the safety and welfare of a Port Shepstone resident who is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Selvan Chetty said the educator responded to a recruitment agency and after interviews signed a one-year contract with a school in Riyadh. The contract was based on the provision of decent accommodation and travel.

“Upon arrival in Riyadh, the educator was confronted by appalling living conditions which included dirty, broken furniture, soiled beds and a cockroach infestation,” the organisation said. 

“She also saw that the one-year contract which she signed in South Africa was replaced with a two-year contract. When she refused to sign, they demanded that she pay R120,000 for the air tickets and visa expenses, an amount far exceeding the amounts paid by the Saudi school.” 

He said she has since left to fend for herself as the private school refused to give her an exit visa, a requirement she needs to leave the country.

“We call on our government, in particular Dirco, to urgently intervene and ensure her safe passage back to her family in Port Shepstone. We further request the government to monitor foreign recruitment agencies and to vet such organisations to comply with minimum standards as required by South African law.

“We encourage all South Africans who are considering taking up employment abroad to verify the reputation and authenticity of the recruitment agency they are intending to use,” he said. 

Chetty added that he spoke to the parents of a KZN woman, who are retired teachers, and they felt that the government had let them down. 

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