Publish Date: Tuesday,12 June, 2007, at 01:23 AM Doha Time
Kanwal Tariq Hameed (second from right) addresses the meeting
Staff Reporter
THE ‘kafala’ (sponsorship) system not only violates human rights for those living under it, but by creating inhumane conditions, it contributes to the issue which the governments of the GCC region claim to be working against, said a human rights activist, Kanwal Tariq Hameed.
Speaking at the concluding session of a two-day Conference on International Migration held in Doha, Hameed, who has researched issues of female migrant domestic workers in Bahrain for many years, said that labour laws in most GCC countries, where Kafala system is in force, do not cover domestic workers.
Publish Date: Tuesday,12 June, 2007, at 01:23 AM Doha Time
Kanwal Tariq Hameed (second from right) addresses the meeting
Staff Reporter
THE ‘kafala’ (sponsorship) system not only violates human rights for those living under it, but by creating inhumane conditions, it contributes to the issue which the governments of the GCC region claim to be working against, said a human rights activist, Kanwal Tariq Hameed.
Speaking at the concluding session of a two-day Conference on International Migration held in Doha, Hameed, who has researched issues of female migrant domestic workers in Bahrain for many years, said that labour laws in most GCC countries, where Kafala system is in force, do not cover domestic workers.
“Because of the domain of their work, households domestic workers do not fall under any national laws and are essentially not legally classified as workers”.
She said that domestic workers are unable to recognise and exercise their rights and enjoy freedom afforded to them because the existing legal system fails to give them recognition, which is making it difficult to scrutinise and regulate their working and living conditions.
Citing a study conducted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2005, she said that female migrant domestic workers work for undefined hours.
“In Bahrain, the average number of hours worked per week was 108, in Kuwait 101 and in UAE 105. These women have an average of one day off per month and their work is unspecified and often takes multiple forms. They are babysitters, kitchen helpers, cleaners and so on,” she said.
She added that in Bahrain, the number of women who escape exhaustive conditions and end up in NGO offices or shelters is on the increase. “Most of these women claimed they have suffered pyschological, verbal, physical and sexual abuse and in these cases, the abusers have been the empolyers or sponsors. Compounding these problems, they have extremely tenuous or no access at all to care, support services and legal redress. So they opt for an escape,” she said.
Describing what the local authorities in GCC countries term excess “illegal runaway” or “free visa” workers, Hameed said that they are the people who often escape exhaustive conditions and continue to work outside the extremely limiting framework of the Kafala system.
“Because Kafala system says that if a domestic help should remain in a receiving country, she should be under her sponsor, if otherwise, she is violating the law and will be arrested as illegal worker, she will be detained and then deported,” she added.
In other cases, according to her, these women had turned to the authorities who are supposed to help them, but many times they had been returned to their abusers.
“If they decide to file court cases against the abusers, these may take an undetermined length of time, may cost a lot of money and may not be successful, the alternative is to remain in jail. So the system treats the victims as criminals, she concluded.
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