Employing runaway workers is illegal and companies and individuals must report within 14 days if any worker is missing or runs away, said an official at the Ministry of Interior.
“All companies and individuals must report about runaway workers within 14 days, especially if the worker failed to leave the country after the expiry of his Residency Permit (RP),” said Lieutenant Colonel Abdelrahman Fakhro, Assistant Director of Search and Follow-Up Department at the Ministry of Interior.
Participating in the Qatar Radio Programme “Al Shurta Maak” ( Police with You), Fakhro said that anyone hiring a runaway worker is exposing himself to legal action because he is violating the residency law.
In an interview with The Peninsula recently, Director of Search and Follow Up Department Brig Abdullah Jaber Lebdah had said that “companies, more than individuals, usually employ illegal residents although they know it is against the law, and we take legal action against them."
Fakhro further said that expatriate workers are caught for their failure to get their RPs renewed within 90 days after expiry or in case his company ceased operations or his sponsor/employer died.
He urged individuals and companies to ensure that their workers have a valid ID, renew their IDs in the right time and report about them to the authorities concerned in case they stop work and run away.
Recently, the Ministry, on its official Facebook account, brought the issue of runaway workers to the focus seeking views and suggestions from the public. The Ministry said that runaway workers are considered a social, security and economical threat irrespective of whether they are domestic helps or those employed by companies.
Such workers can create security problems because their presence in the country is a violation of the residency law and some of them may engage in jobs in which they have no previous experience.
