Saudi Arabia’s state oil firm apologised after social media images showing a worker made to dress up as a human hand gel dispenser sparked outrage online.
The images taken inside a Saudi Aramco office show the employee, who has a face mask and gloves on, approaching colleagues while wearing a sandwich board with a dispenser attached to the front. One staff member could even be seen squeezing some out.
Around the world people have been urged to take extra hygiene measures, including washing hands, in order to try and avoid catching Covid-19, which the World Health Organisation finally declared a pandemic after it infected more than 126,000 people in 118 countries, killing more than 4,600.
Saudi Aramco confirmed in a statement it had immediately ended the practice and taken ‘drastic measures to prevent it from happening again’.
The firm said: ‘With regard to the images circulated on social media of a colleague wearing a sanitiser bottle inside one of our facilities.
‘Aramco would like to express its strong dissatisfaction towards the behaviour that intended to emphasise the importance of hygiene.
‘The company immediately stopped this act and took drastic measures to prevent it from happening again.’
They added the stunt took place ‘without the approval of the company’.
It was widely condemned on social media, with users blasting it as ‘disgusting’ and ‘humiliating’ for the worker.
One said it showed ‘shocking contempt for human dignity’ while others called the move ‘racist, shameful, and disgusting’.
Saudi Arabia has extended flight and travel bans over coronavirus fears to include the EU and 12 other countries after announcing 24 new cases overnight, bringing its total to 45, state media reported on Thursday.
A spike in cases in the Gulf helped push confirmed cases in the Middle East past 10,000, with most infected people either in Iran or having recently travelled there.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/12/saudi-oil-company-dressed-migrant-worker-hand-sanitiser-dispenser-12386264/?ITO=squid
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