[hatcravat]

You obviously haven't traveled internationally very much or you are being deliberately obtuse (or both).

I'll explain anyway: Many countries have some sort of passport control both when you enter and when you leave the country. The reasons for this are varied, but a common one is to make sure you didn't overstay your visa. As a result, you need to have a valid visa attached to your passport to pass through passportcontrol to exit the country. It is almost never sufficient to have been issued a visa to pass through passport control. You almost always need the one physical piece of paper that is the physical manifestation of the visa.

If your employer has your passport, they also have the visa which was stapled to it. Your embassy can easily get you a replacement passport, but a replacement visa is up to the host country.

Your two options to leave are: 1) Ask your former employer for your passport and visa. 2) Go through some (or a lot, to judge from the other comments) bureaucracy to get a new visa.

[dedward]

While this is all true - stolen passports are a very real problem, and when I had mine stolen, and got a replacement, it clearly said on one of the first pages "This passport replaces passport #XXXXXXX reported stolen on DATE".

Yes, I lost all my visa/entry stamps.... and yes, that can be a problem - but the fact is, a nation is unlikely to hold you hostage and create a diplomatic incident because your passport has been stolen.

[wtracy]

Wait, so the process to discourage you from overstaying your Visa is to hold you in the country longer?