Dubai: Saudi Arabia will soon adopt a national anti-discrimination policy that bans all forms of discrimination, local media reported.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development has been working on the first of its kind policy that will be adopted officially in the near future.
“The policy is in the final phases of its formulation and it will be accorded approval shortly,” an official source at the ministry said.
Relevant authorities recently worked out a mechanism for reporting practices of discrimination at workplaces.
The policy will include anti-gender discrimination rules related to pay and advertisements for jobs.
The ministry had recently stressed that citizens have equal rights to work without any discrimination on the basis of gender or any other forms of discrimination, whether at the workplace or when hiring or advertising.
The ministry’s unequivocal clarification came in a response to a query via the Twitter account of the ministry’s Customer Care after a company published an advertisement for men-only jobs.
“The advertisement violates article 3 of the labour law,” the ministry said while emphasising that work is the right of every citizen and that no one is entitled to engage in any practice that violates this regulation without fulfilling the conditions stipulated in the Labor Law.
Through the anti-discrimination policy, the ministry seeks to regulate the job market by issuing and updating rules related to the work environment in both the public and private sector.
