#jadoon

Jadoon doesn’t plan to return to Pakistan, if he can avoid it. He’s a survivor of the financial crisis that hit the Bin Laden Group and forced thousands of Pakistani migrant workers to return home, giving up salaries worth years of service. At the peak of the crisis, another subsidiary of the Bin Laden Group offered him a job and he decided to go for it. “I thought going back and starting from scratch would be more difficult for me,” says the 36-year-old who went to Saudi Arabia when he was 25. “I thought it was better that I remain on duty and recover my previous dues that are still pending with the company.” As of now, Jadoon is still waiting for six months’ worth of salary from previous years, while his iqama stands expired. “I mostly stay in my compound and if the police catch us on the way or back from duty, the company is responsible for us then. Between 2015 and 2018, the situation has improved a lot. I don’t plan on going to Pakistan anytime soon. You see, Saudi Arabia has nothing but oil and we [Pakistan] have everything and yet we spend our lives like slaves of our political system.”

Remember the jadoon