Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09KUWAIT788
2009-08-10 13:47:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Kuwait
Cable title:
GOK ENACTS POSITIVE CHANGE TO FLAWED WORKER
how-toVZCZCXRO8747 PP RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHDIR DE RUEHKU #0788/01 2221347 ZNY CCCCC ZZH P 101347Z AUG 09 FM AMEMBASSY KUWAIT TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3786 INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 0425 RUEHYN/AMEMBASSY SANAA PRIORITY 0594 RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KUWAIT 000788
SIPDIS
NEA/ARP
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KWMN KTIP SMIG KU
SUBJECT: GOK ENACTS POSITIVE CHANGE TO FLAWED WORKER
SPONSORSHIP SYSTEM AND CONSIDERS EVEN BOLDER STEPS THAT
COULD HELP ADDRESS TIP CONCERNS
REF: 09KUWAIT761
Classified By: CDA Tom Williams for reasons 1.4 b and d
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KUWAIT 000788
SIPDIS
NEA/ARP
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KWMN KTIP SMIG KU
SUBJECT: GOK ENACTS POSITIVE CHANGE TO FLAWED WORKER
SPONSORSHIP SYSTEM AND CONSIDERS EVEN BOLDER STEPS THAT
COULD HELP ADDRESS TIP CONCERNS
REF: 09KUWAIT761
Classified By: CDA Tom Williams for reasons 1.4 b and d
1. (C) Summary. The GOK has made several recent moves
towards reforming its flawed foreign worker sponsorship
system:
-- On August 9, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor
(MOSAL) issued a Ministerial resolution ) not subject to
Parliamentary approval ) to immediately permit most foreign
workers to change employers after three years of work,
without first having to secure the permission of the current
Kuwaiti sponsor.
-- One week earlier, on August 2, MOSAL Minister Al-Afasi
publicly proposed the complete abolition of the GOK's current
sponsorship system for foreign workers as a way of combating
trafficking in persons.
-- Separately, Minister Al-Afasi told the press that Kuwait
had strongly backed the proposal at the June 8 meeting of GCC
foreign ministers to exempt Yemenis from any sponsorship
requirements, and expressed the view he hoped this policy
would be adopted soon.
End summary.
-------------- ---
MOSAL resolution allows foreign workers greater freedom of
movement
-------------- ---
2. (SBU) On August 9, Kuwait's MOSAL issued a ministerial
resolution which immediately granted any foreign worker who
has been with the same employer for three years the right to
change jobs without the requirement to first secure the
current employer or sponsor's permission (which was often
withheld or granted only after payment of some form of agreed
compensation to the sponsor). The resolution, not subject to
Parliamentary approval, has received a largely favorable
response in the local press. The decision does not apply to
domestic servants (about 500,000 workers) because they are
not covered by the labor law, nor does it apply to government
contracts, where Decree Number 135 of 2001 requires five
years before any foreign worker can make such a change.
-------------- --------------
GOK talks up possibility of abolishing the sponsorship system
-------------- --------------
3. (U) August has seen a flurry of GOK statements on
abolishing the sponsorship system. On August 2, local Arabic
daily Al-Rai quoted MOSAL Minister Dr. Mohammad Al-Afasi as
saying that he was considering abolishing Kuwait's
sponsorship system for foreign workers because he felt that
black market visa trading blemishes Kuwait's international
image. On August 3, Al-Afasi made another statement --
quoted by Arabic daily Al-Watan -- that he had decided to
abolish the sponsorship system in order to combat trafficking
in persons. On August 6, Al-Rai quoted the Ministry of
Interior as saying that it was planning to change Kuwait's
foreign workers residency law to allow for more workers to
sponsor themselves -- a necessary step in abolishing the
current sponsorship system, under which all non-GCC workers
must be sponsored by a Kuwaiti.
-------------- ---
GOK-backed GCC proposal may exempt Yemenis from sponsorship
requirements
-------------- ---
4. (SBU) At a June 8 meeting of GCC foreign ministers, the
GOK and other member countries proposed to give Yemeni
workers priority in employment and exempt them from
sponsorship. If this proposal is eventually enacted, Yemenis
would be the first group of non-GCC workers to have such an
exemption, as all other foreign workers in Kuwait currently
require sponsors. Enacting the proposal would require the
establishment of an entirely new GOK mechanism for regulating
KUWAIT 00000788 002 OF 003
foreign workers. Yemenis account for only about 5,000 of
Kuwait's 1.7 million foreign workers. (Note: Most were
expelled after Sana'a supported Saddam's 1990 invasion. End
note.) In proposing to import more Yemeni workers, the GOK
likely had three main motivations: a desire for more foreign
workers who share Kuwait's Arab and Muslim heritage, a desire
to help stabilize Yemen, and a desire to decrease the
population of Bangladeshi and other TCN manual laborers.
(Note: Since 5,000 Bangladeshi workers protested against poor
labor conditions in Kuwait in July 2008, the GOK has been
wary of its 200,000 Bangladeshis and has curtailed new
sponsorships for workers from that country. End note.)
-------------- ---
Kuwait's sponsorship system: the law
-------------- ---
5. (SBU) For any Kuwaiti to use the services of any non-GCC
workers, said workers must be under the Kuwaiti's
sponsorship. The GOK's MOSAL grants Kuwaiti companies
seeking foreign labor the right to issue a limited number of
residency visas based on the particular company's labor needs
(as evaluated by MOSAL). By regulation, residency visas are
supposed to be issued to the foreign workers for free. The
various types of residency visas are regulated by different
legal articles: worker visas by article 18, domestic worker
visas by article 20, and visas for dependents by article 22.
-------------- ---
Kuwait's sponsorship system: the flaws
-------------- ---
6. (SBU) In Kuwait's sponsorship system, there are four main
parties: the GOK, the Kuwaiti sponsor (which can be an
individual or a company),the recruiting agent, and the
foreign worker. (Note: Kuwaiti companies have recruiting
agents based India, Egypt, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the
Philippines, and the other major labor-sending countries.
End note.) Some unscrupulous Kuwaiti sponsors and recruiting
agents make money by selling the residency visas -- which
foreign workers are supposed to obtain for free -- for 500 to
1,500 Kuwaiti dinars (USD 1,700 to 5,200). Sometimes, these
sold residency visas are also useless for the foreign worker
because the job which the visa is issued for exists only on
paper and is not connected to a real job back in Kuwait.
These fraudulent visa sales are a high-profile issue in
Kuwait: on July 29, local Arabic daily Al-Qabas ran a
front-page story that the Attorney General had ordered the
arrest of a Kuwaiti citizen accused of forging over 50,000
residency visas registered under 137 phony companies. Though
the number of victims of these fraudulent sales is unknown,
some foreign workers submit themselves to this fraudulent
process in hopes that they will eventually find employment.
7. (SBU) Once the foreign workers arrive in Kuwait, some find
that they have little control in their relationship with
their sponsor under Kuwait's current sponsorship system, due
ease with which sponsors may have their employees deported.
Some sponsors exploit the one-sided nature of this
employer-employee relationship by confiscating their workers'
passports, withholding pay, reneging on contracts, and even
physically abusing their workers.
-------------- ---
Who supports and who opposes abolishing the sponsorship
system?
-------------- ---
8. (C) Thabet Ibrahim Al-Haroun, head of the International
Labor Organization's Kuwait office, told PolOff at an August
6 meeting that senior and well-connected Kuwaitis, from many
prominent families, are involved in the illegal visa trading
and consequently outright abolition of the sponsorship system
appears a remote possibility. However, Al-Haroun also said
that the GOK is ready to act to reform sponsorship because
the government-parliament political gridlock which has
hamstrung the GOK for the past three years appears to be
subsiding. He added that constant USG pressure, in the form
of the TIP report, as well as Kuwaiti NGO activity, has
KUWAIT 00000788 003 OF 003
encouraged those supporting reform, which he conceded would
be gradual.
-------------- ---
Comment
-------------- ---
9. (C) While MOSAL Minister Al-Afasi is showing commendable
leadership in speaking publicly of even more drastic changes,
an outright end to sponsorship appears yet to be a
considerable distance away, in part because of the need to
build a governmental framework that could support a
self-sponsorship structure, and in part because of the large
amounts of money that many Kuwaitis can earn through
manipulation of the existing process. Nonetheless, the
recently announced reform of the sponsorship system to permit
greater labor mobility after three years is a positive and
welcome development, which will give foreign workers here
greater rights and the ability to leave bad employers for
good ones, and represents a small but tangible step forward
in addressing our labor rights and TIP concerns. End
comment.
********************************************* *********
For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit:
visit Kuwait's Classified Website at:
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Kuwa it
********************************************* *********
WILLIAMS
SIPDIS
NEA/ARP
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KWMN KTIP SMIG KU
SUBJECT: GOK ENACTS POSITIVE CHANGE TO FLAWED WORKER
SPONSORSHIP SYSTEM AND CONSIDERS EVEN BOLDER STEPS THAT
COULD HELP ADDRESS TIP CONCERNS
REF: 09KUWAIT761
Classified By: CDA Tom Williams for reasons 1.4 b and d
1. (C) Summary. The GOK has made several recent moves
towards reforming its flawed foreign worker sponsorship
system:
-- On August 9, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor
(MOSAL) issued a Ministerial resolution ) not subject to
Parliamentary approval ) to immediately permit most foreign
workers to change employers after three years of work,
without first having to secure the permission of the current
Kuwaiti sponsor.
-- One week earlier, on August 2, MOSAL Minister Al-Afasi
publicly proposed the complete abolition of the GOK's current
sponsorship system for foreign workers as a way of combating
trafficking in persons.
-- Separately, Minister Al-Afasi told the press that Kuwait
had strongly backed the proposal at the June 8 meeting of GCC
foreign ministers to exempt Yemenis from any sponsorship
requirements, and expressed the view he hoped this policy
would be adopted soon.
End summary.
-------------- ---
MOSAL resolution allows foreign workers greater freedom of
movement
-------------- ---
2. (SBU) On August 9, Kuwait's MOSAL issued a ministerial
resolution which immediately granted any foreign worker who
has been with the same employer for three years the right to
change jobs without the requirement to first secure the
current employer or sponsor's permission (which was often
withheld or granted only after payment of some form of agreed
compensation to the sponsor). The resolution, not subject to
Parliamentary approval, has received a largely favorable
response in the local press. The decision does not apply to
domestic servants (about 500,000 workers) because they are
not covered by the labor law, nor does it apply to government
contracts, where Decree Number 135 of 2001 requires five
years before any foreign worker can make such a change.
-------------- --------------
GOK talks up possibility of abolishing the sponsorship system
-------------- --------------
3. (U) August has seen a flurry of GOK statements on
abolishing the sponsorship system. On August 2, local Arabic
daily Al-Rai quoted MOSAL Minister Dr. Mohammad Al-Afasi as
saying that he was considering abolishing Kuwait's
sponsorship system for foreign workers because he felt that
black market visa trading blemishes Kuwait's international
image. On August 3, Al-Afasi made another statement --
quoted by Arabic daily Al-Watan -- that he had decided to
abolish the sponsorship system in order to combat trafficking
in persons. On August 6, Al-Rai quoted the Ministry of
Interior as saying that it was planning to change Kuwait's
foreign workers residency law to allow for more workers to
sponsor themselves -- a necessary step in abolishing the
current sponsorship system, under which all non-GCC workers
must be sponsored by a Kuwaiti.
-------------- ---
GOK-backed GCC proposal may exempt Yemenis from sponsorship
requirements
-------------- ---
4. (SBU) At a June 8 meeting of GCC foreign ministers, the
GOK and other member countries proposed to give Yemeni
workers priority in employment and exempt them from
sponsorship. If this proposal is eventually enacted, Yemenis
would be the first group of non-GCC workers to have such an
exemption, as all other foreign workers in Kuwait currently
require sponsors. Enacting the proposal would require the
establishment of an entirely new GOK mechanism for regulating
KUWAIT 00000788 002 OF 003
foreign workers. Yemenis account for only about 5,000 of
Kuwait's 1.7 million foreign workers. (Note: Most were
expelled after Sana'a supported Saddam's 1990 invasion. End
note.) In proposing to import more Yemeni workers, the GOK
likely had three main motivations: a desire for more foreign
workers who share Kuwait's Arab and Muslim heritage, a desire
to help stabilize Yemen, and a desire to decrease the
population of Bangladeshi and other TCN manual laborers.
(Note: Since 5,000 Bangladeshi workers protested against poor
labor conditions in Kuwait in July 2008, the GOK has been
wary of its 200,000 Bangladeshis and has curtailed new
sponsorships for workers from that country. End note.)
-------------- ---
Kuwait's sponsorship system: the law
-------------- ---
5. (SBU) For any Kuwaiti to use the services of any non-GCC
workers, said workers must be under the Kuwaiti's
sponsorship. The GOK's MOSAL grants Kuwaiti companies
seeking foreign labor the right to issue a limited number of
residency visas based on the particular company's labor needs
(as evaluated by MOSAL). By regulation, residency visas are
supposed to be issued to the foreign workers for free. The
various types of residency visas are regulated by different
legal articles: worker visas by article 18, domestic worker
visas by article 20, and visas for dependents by article 22.
-------------- ---
Kuwait's sponsorship system: the flaws
-------------- ---
6. (SBU) In Kuwait's sponsorship system, there are four main
parties: the GOK, the Kuwaiti sponsor (which can be an
individual or a company),the recruiting agent, and the
foreign worker. (Note: Kuwaiti companies have recruiting
agents based India, Egypt, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the
Philippines, and the other major labor-sending countries.
End note.) Some unscrupulous Kuwaiti sponsors and recruiting
agents make money by selling the residency visas -- which
foreign workers are supposed to obtain for free -- for 500 to
1,500 Kuwaiti dinars (USD 1,700 to 5,200). Sometimes, these
sold residency visas are also useless for the foreign worker
because the job which the visa is issued for exists only on
paper and is not connected to a real job back in Kuwait.
These fraudulent visa sales are a high-profile issue in
Kuwait: on July 29, local Arabic daily Al-Qabas ran a
front-page story that the Attorney General had ordered the
arrest of a Kuwaiti citizen accused of forging over 50,000
residency visas registered under 137 phony companies. Though
the number of victims of these fraudulent sales is unknown,
some foreign workers submit themselves to this fraudulent
process in hopes that they will eventually find employment.
7. (SBU) Once the foreign workers arrive in Kuwait, some find
that they have little control in their relationship with
their sponsor under Kuwait's current sponsorship system, due
ease with which sponsors may have their employees deported.
Some sponsors exploit the one-sided nature of this
employer-employee relationship by confiscating their workers'
passports, withholding pay, reneging on contracts, and even
physically abusing their workers.
-------------- ---
Who supports and who opposes abolishing the sponsorship
system?
-------------- ---
8. (C) Thabet Ibrahim Al-Haroun, head of the International
Labor Organization's Kuwait office, told PolOff at an August
6 meeting that senior and well-connected Kuwaitis, from many
prominent families, are involved in the illegal visa trading
and consequently outright abolition of the sponsorship system
appears a remote possibility. However, Al-Haroun also said
that the GOK is ready to act to reform sponsorship because
the government-parliament political gridlock which has
hamstrung the GOK for the past three years appears to be
subsiding. He added that constant USG pressure, in the form
of the TIP report, as well as Kuwaiti NGO activity, has
KUWAIT 00000788 003 OF 003
encouraged those supporting reform, which he conceded would
be gradual.
-------------- ---
Comment
-------------- ---
9. (C) While MOSAL Minister Al-Afasi is showing commendable
leadership in speaking publicly of even more drastic changes,
an outright end to sponsorship appears yet to be a
considerable distance away, in part because of the need to
build a governmental framework that could support a
self-sponsorship structure, and in part because of the large
amounts of money that many Kuwaitis can earn through
manipulation of the existing process. Nonetheless, the
recently announced reform of the sponsorship system to permit
greater labor mobility after three years is a positive and
welcome development, which will give foreign workers here
greater rights and the ability to leave bad employers for
good ones, and represents a small but tangible step forward
in addressing our labor rights and TIP concerns. End
comment.
********************************************* *********
For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit:
visit Kuwait's Classified Website at:
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Kuwa it
********************************************* *********
WILLIAMS