MANILA, Philippines – A migrant workers' rights group has urged Gulf States in the Middle East to abolish their sponsorship system and respect the rights and well being of expatriate workers.
This after Kuwait has expressed its intention of scrapping the sponsorship system, locally known as “kafeel,” to give freedom to expatriate workers in terms of travel and the opportunity to look for a better job within the country.
"We are urging other host governments in the Gulf States to follow the same step taken by the Kuwaiti government in abolishing the sponsorship system,” Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator John Monterona said.
Monterona said a local paper in Kuwait quoted Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Mohammed Al-Afasi as saying that the "kafeel" system will be scrapped when a public authority for the recruitment of foreign workers is established in February.
"This will be our gift to foreign workers on the anniversary of Kuwait's liberation," from seven months of Iraqi occupation in 1991,” the minister was quoted as saying.
The sponsorship system serves as the legal basis for one’s residency and employment in Saudi Arabia and even in some other Gulf States.
Monterona said that expatriates cannot enter, work, change jobs or leave the country until they have permission from their sponsor, usually a citizen, company or ministry officials.
“The sponsorship system requires that an expatriate can work only for the sponsor and is entirely dependent on the contract in order to remain in the country,” he said.
Monterona said that usually the laborer’s employer is the one who issues the visa invitation letter, which requires the employee to work only for the original employer, who is also called the employee’s “sponsor.”
Aside from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, calls for the abolishment of sponsorship system received support in Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates from expatriates and nationals of those states. - By Dennis Carcamo
