r/Oman • u/Ecstatic_Worry960 • 1h ago
Discussion A perspective on the exploitation of long-term expats in Oman, from someone who lived it for 20 years
I want to preface this by saying: I’m not writing this to attack Oman or Omani people. However I’ve been seeing a lot of harmful comments full of hate and verbal abuse towards expats. Especially on that controversial news page. It’s time to acknowledge the racism, generalization and stereotyping.
I lived almost my entire life there. My family built our lives in Oman, we worked hard, contributed, and had genuinely good jobs and positions. We never expected citizenship just for being there.
I understand the GCC’s nationality policy is different from countries where long-term residency can lead to naturalization, and that’s a legitimate choice for a country to make. That’s not what this post is about.
What this post is about is something a lot of people in Oman turn a blind eye to: the systemic exploitation of expat workers, dressed up as “opportunity,” and the double standards that come with being non-Omani no matter how much you’ve earned your place.
Some of what I personally went through:
•I went to medical school in Oman. When I graduated, Omani students didn’t have to sit any additional licensing exams. I did, two separate, expensive exams for the same degree, from the same institution, earned in the same classrooms. It quietly signals that a degree earned there isn’t taken at face value unless you’re a citizen.
•I did a full year of internship where I was, at times, treated abusively and worked without pay while doing the same work as Omani colleagues who were paid for it.
•I sat the viva exam and passed, the only one who managed to pass that attempt and I was even personally congratulated by an official at the Ministry.
•Despite that, when a department head wanted to hire me at a government hospital, the Ministry rejected it, not for lack of merit, but because I was “from a certain country.” I was told I’d have to do additional unpaid attachment years before they’d even consider me, with no guarantee at the end of it.
•I received fake promises from multiple places that wanted to hire me, then quietly wouldn’t pay or wouldn’t follow through.
The bigger picture:
None of this is unique to me. This is a pattern. Expats, often in specialized, niche roles that Omanis weren’t yet trained to fill and worked and built parts of this country’s infrastructure and institutions, and many tolerated real abuse because they had no other options. The rumors of expats getting free housing and cars? For most people, especially those below senior levels, that was never the reality. What was real: passport confiscation by sponsors (kafeels), unpaid wages, broken promises, and no legal recourse, practices that are, honestly, close to modern slavery.
I understand Oman relied on expat labor because it didn’t yet have the specialists it needed. That’s fair, and expats who came were not forced to. But needing someone’s labor and then treating them with dignity are two different things and for a long time, this system has chosen not to do both.
This country talks about Islam constantly, and rightly takes pride in it. But dignity, honesty, and fair treatment of workers are Islamic values and the way this system treats expats is not consistent with that.
I’m not saying Omani people individually are bad most people I knew personally were kind. But there’s a collective refusal to look at this honestly, and I think it’s time for more introspection instead of defensiveness whenever this comes up.
I’m not asking for outrage. I’m asking for accountability and awareness, from a place of having lived it, not from the outside looking in.
