Written by Anna Mordasova
Living in extreme poverty, a lot of people dream to escape their difficult reality and seek better life conditions. Unfortunately, some of them end up being the victims of the Kafala system. This way of migrants’ recruitment started being widely publicly discussed at the time of the preparation for the World Cup in Qatar, however, this tool is not a novelty. The Kafala system has a long history, which is also connected with the violation of human rights.
What is the Kafala system?
‘Kafala’ means sponsorship in Arabic. Under this system a sponsor or a kafeel is the one who provides a migrant worker with visa and other documents, which is necessary for their legal status in the country. The Kafala system is a popular tool for recruitment of the migrant labor force in the Gulf countries (i.e. Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). In practice, since a sponsor or a guarantor is an employer, they have control over a worker’s working hours, wages and their movement within and outside of the country.
Historically speaking, the occurrence of the Kafala system dates back to the 1950th. It was created by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with the aim to promote economic development in those countries and regulate the relations between the employers and migrant employees from West Asia. However, the Kafala system has spread beyond the Gulf countries and now is practiced in Jordan and Lebanon as well.
How does it function?
The majority of people who are imprisoned by the Kafala system come from impoverished countries, such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea and have families to support financially back home. Their economic background is often abused by the recruiters, who promise migrants wages which are way higher than in their home countries. That makes a job opportunity look highly appealing to migrant workers at first sight. Before starting work, migrants are often obliged to pay recruitment fees. Such fees are impossible to pay from workers’ low salaries, which, in turn, makes them even more dependent on their sponsors, and, in the end, they go into enormous debts.
Working under the Kafala system, a migrant is closely bound to their sponsor, since they cannot enter or leave the country without a written permission of their kafeel. Moreover, an employee remains tightly connected to their guarantor during the whole term of work and cannot transfer their employment. This makes it extremely difficult - and in many instances impossible - for a worker to sever relations with their sponsor once they have entered the Kafala system.
Originally, the employment under the Kafala system was meant to be short-term with the goal not to grant migrants the rights of citizens. That is why in the beginning the migrants coming from different countries used to be called ‘guest workers’. Unfortunately, this way of recruitment turns out to be permanent for some workers, who end up being tied to their sponsors for their lifetime, often facing the threats of arrest or deportation. More often than not, sponsors take migrants’ documents and passports, which is another obstacle for employees to leave the country. The situation has been worsened by the support of the sending countries, which keep contributing workforce to the countries practicing the Kafala system.
As a consequence of the Kafala system, it has been documented that migrant domestic workers face different forms of abuse, exploitation, human trafficking, deprivation of food and restrictions of movement. People who work under the Kafala system may rarely seek any remedies for a number of reasons. First, usually migrant workers cannot afford paying fees for the court proceedings. Second, often they simply do not possess their documents. Moreover, in some cases, such as in Lebanon, relations between a migrant domestic worker (MDW) and a kafeel do not fall within labor law according to Article 7 of the Lebanese labor code.
Kafala issue in Qatar
The notorious Kafala system has gained its public outcry during the preparation for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and when the competition was taking place. Migrants constituted the major part of the labor force used for this event. Migrant workers, mostly from Africa and Asia, were the ones who made the World Cup in Qatar possible by building the main construction objects, such as the stadium, metro and working in the service field during the event itself.
According to the documents provided by Amnesty International, in 2020, around 100 migrant employees working in the construction of the Al Bayt Stadium were not paid for seven months. Some of them faced the problem of expired residence permits, which were not renewed by the employers. Also, people who came to work in Qatar were obliged to pay recruitment fees in the amount of $900 - $2 000.
In 2014, the complaint was made against Qatar for non-compliance with the Forced Labour Convention. In this complaint the delegates of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) expressed its concern regarding 1.5 million migrant workers being the victims of forced labor. It was highlighted that workers enjoyed very few rights under the Kafala recruitment in Qatar followed by the impossibility of holding their employers accountable, arrest and deportation. It led to Qatar signing an agreement with the ILO in 2017 aimed at conducting reforms in this field. Indeed, since then Qatar has amended its legislation by establishing the minimum wage for migrant workers and overturning exit permits. Despite the fact that the Qatari authorities conducted reform in the labor law, human rights protectors have claimed that they are still not sufficient. The crucial issue for now, according to Amnesty International, is the law enforcement of the existing legislation and further legal changes.
Sexual violence
Among others, one of the main issue of the Kafala system is sexual violence against migrant workers. A lot of women who are migrant domestic workers often face rape and other forms of sexual assault committed by the employers themselves. The Human Rights Watch has conducted the interviews of MDWs in Oman. One of the victims, Asma K. was sexually harassed by three sons of her employer, and nobody came to help her. Marisa L., another sexual survivor, faced a similarly traumatizing experience. Another victim was raped at her workplace by her sponsor. These are but a few examples of the structural abuse that takes place due to the unequal power relationship that is engrained in the Kafala system.
In Lebanon, around 250 000 of the labor force are migrant workers, the largest part of whom are women hired through the Kafala system. The Sigrid Rausing Trust, a UK grant-making foundation, specializing in human rights, business and environment, conducted a large-scale research interviewing almost a thousand female MDWs working in Lebanon. Numerous interviews have revealed that 68% of the respondents have experienced sexual harassment and 11.7% have faced sexual assault. Furthermore, in 70% of the cases the perpetrator of these assaults and harassments was the MDWs’male employer. In 2020, the Law 205 regulating sexual harassment was adopted in Lebanon, however, again MDWs fall outside of its scope.
Conclusion
Overall, the Kafala system has been transformed from a temporary solution to labor shortage in the Gulf countries into a widespread practice. The fact that migrant workers oftentimes originate from poor countries make them an easy target for the Kafala recruiters. It has been revealed that this system not only violates basic human rights, such as freedom of movement, but it also leads to massive sexual harassment of female workers. Also there have been the cases of suicide committed by some of them. Indeed, thanks to massive campaigns led by the NGOs and the ILO influence there can be seen legislative changes. Nevertheless, they are still insufficient to eradicate the Kafala system or at least to provide the workers with appropriate effective protection. Numerous NGOs, such as Amnesty International, have been condemning the countries exercising the Kafala system and urging them to amend their legislation.