Rapping “I’m not afraid of my sponsor,” a three-minute music video in Arabic has gone viral by putting a comedic spin on the daily challenges many migrant labourers face in Saudi Arabia.

The video opens on a mustachioed man reading a newspaper on a mattress on the floor of a cramped room.

“Oh, sure, we brought you from Pakistan so you could read the newspaper and watch TV,” says another man, suddenly standing over the worker, and wearing a thobe — a flowing white robe — and red-and-white checkered keffiyeh, a look common among locals in the Gulf region.

Angered by the encounter with his employer, the worker goes on to rap “I carry everything on my back,” while singing and dancing with two other rappers in a vacant building.

“Think I’m afraid? Everything you do, I see,” he says defiantly into the camera.

The video was created by Saudi-based Telfaz11, which says it is the first Arabic online video network.

It has amassed almost 500,000 views since it was posted on YouTube Tuesday.

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“Who makes the intersections? Who made the sewage system? Who carries the trash? Who works at the convenience store? All Saudis forget who drives the taxis,” another man raps, referring to the varied jobs migrant workers fill across the country.

It’s not clear if the rappers are actors or real migrant workers.

More than nine million foreign workers are currently employed in Saudi Arabia, constituting more than half of the local workforce, according to Amnesty International.

Most migrant workers in Saudi Arabia come from India and Pakistan.

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Under the country’s kafala system, workers’ residency permits are bound to their employers, who must provide written consent to allow them to change jobs or leave the country.

Human rights groups have documented widespread abuse of migrant workers in the Gulf, including forced labour, the confiscation of passports and withholding wages.

The restrictive employment system is also used in several neighboring countries, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman.

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