Rabat – Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco received heavy criticism after photos showing a foreign worker wearing a large hand-sanitizer dispenser costume went viral on social media.
The company intended to encourage its employees to clean their hands regularly in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The photos appear to show Aramco employees using a hand sanitizer dispenser attached to a man wearing a surgical mask.
Twitter users heavily criticized the company, describing the behavior as a racist act against the foreign worker.
“Slavery was never abolished here, just repackaged,” one Twitter user wrote.
Following social media outrage, the company released a statement apologizing to the public for the “irresponsible” behavior.
إشارة إلى الصور المتداولة في وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لأحد الزملاء مرتدياً ما يشبه عبوة للتعقيم في أحد مرافقها، تود #أرامكو السعودية أن تعرب عن استيائها الشديد من هذا التصرف المسيء الذي أريد به التأكيد على أهمية التعقيم، دون أخذ موافقة من الجهة المعنية بالشركة.
— أرامكو (@Saudi_Aramco) March 10, 2020
The statement on Twitter said Aramco immediately resolved the situation and “took strict measures to prevent it from happening again.”
Aramco argued that it did not authorize or approve hiring a foreigner to dress up in a hand sanitizer costume.
Twitter users responded to the company, saying the firm should apologize to the man rather than the public.
The novel coronavirus outbreak has affected more than 100 countries so far, including Morocco.
The humiliation & rendering of some lives as disposable apparently has no bounds. Aramco’s apology should be noted but the fact that someone in leadership thought this was appropriate to begin with speaks volumes about the public perception of migrant workers in the gulf. https://t.co/HOD21jjsxI
— Laya Behbahani (@LayaBehbahani) March 11, 2020
The World Health Organization said that more than 118,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide, while the death toll has surpassed 4,300.
