A Saudi Arabian Company Dressed a Migrant Worker as a Hand Sanitizer Bottle

Even as stories of hardships and kindness amid the coronavirus pandemic are both breaking and winning hearts across the world, stories of racism have also been on the rise. A recent incident was a promotional act initiated by Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco, which is facing flak for dressing up an immigrant employee in the garb of a humanoid hand-sanitizer deployer.

The company was accused of racism and exploitation after images of a non-Saudi man wearing a bodysuit to look like a walking-talking bottle of hand-sanitizer went viral. The man was seen wearing a mask and the bottle of hand sanitiser on his body and walking outside one of Aramco's offices, dispensing the liquid to passersby. Though the image was not geo-tagged, netizens allege the image was from the company's Dhahran office.

The image evoked instant outrage with many calling the stunt racist. Many slammed Aramco for the "humiliating" job given to the worker and called the incident "dehumanizing" and akin to "modern-day slavery". A Saudi user termed the incident "Gulf classism. A gift from Aramco".

In fact, on Tuesday, the state-owned oil baron apologised for the "abusive" incident and explained that their only intention was to raise awareness about coronavirus.

"The company immediately stopped this act and took drastic measures to prevent it from happening again," Aramco wrote on Twitter. "The company emphasizes its firm against compromising its values based on respect and adherence to ethics and conduct".

Many, however, noted that the man in the hand-sanitizer bottle suit was no different than human billboards that were common across countries like the United States others.

Despite the apology, some netizens were not convinced and said that Aramco needed to apologise not to its followers on social media but the employee himself who was made to do the dehumanising job.