How dare these slaves be treated with dignity!

Another good article in the Kuwait Times yesterday by Jamie Etheridge is reproduced in full. It's great that this stuff is able to be published in the media in Kuwait! It makes me optimistic that things can change for the better, but at the same time amazes me that such dinosaurs are elected as MPs! And, it's not often that the Ministry of Interior can be praised for using some common sense...

A setback for hope: MPs and labour laws

By Jamie Etheridge
KUWAIT: This week the Ministry of the Interior rejected a proposal by MPs
to place an additional restriction on expat labour in Kuwait. The proposal
recommended that any expatriate wishing to travel outside the country must first
obtain from his/her sponsor a 'certificate of non-objection.' Luckily the
Ministry refused the request on the grounds that it 1.) contravened the
government's policy of facilitating freedom of travel for non-criminals; 2.)
because there are plenty of systems in place already to catch criminals who try
to abscond; 3) most employers and sponsors already hold the passports of their
expat staff, even though this is against the law and 4.) it would be extremely
difficult to apply because foreigners who needed to leave on an emergency may
not be able to reach sponsors on vacation or unavailable.

We are thankful for the Ministry's detailed logic and decision to allow
foreign labour at least the dignity of freedom of travel. We can't help but
wonder which MPs thought placing such a harsh and burdensome restriction on more
than 1.2 million expatriates living and working in Kuwait was a good idea.
Imagine the nightmare of trying to get a 'certificate of non-objection' from a
sponsor who has physically abused you or failed to pay you or maybe just traded
you off to another sponsor. Imagine even trying to get a 'non-objection
certificate' from a great and generous sponsor who travels - like many Kuwaitis
- out of the country on a regular basis. What were these MPs thinking? What
could possibly prompt them to want to leash like dogs 1.2 million people to
their sponsors when the US State Department is openly and publicly ridiculing
Kuwait for its failure to protect to victims of 'human trafficking' and failure
to prosecute human traffickers.

Already the International Labour Organisation has recommended that Kuwait
abandon the trouble-laden sponsorship system and instead allow only the state to
act as an official sponsor for all imported labour. Many expatriates and labour
activists see this as the most reasonable solution, reducing the possibility for
abuses by sponsors and reducing the financial burden and risks sponsors take
when they hire and import expat labour.

The debate about human trafficking and troubled labour laws, however,
doesn't seem to be penetrating the national conscious - or rather, the National
Assembly's conscious. MPs who still think of expat labour as just a step above
slaves clearly aren't ready to enter a discussion about how to protect Asian
maids from their employers or how to stop child camel jockey trafficking in the
region.

Is the gap between Arabic and English discourse in Kuwait so wide that
Members of Parliament seriously have heard nothing about how expat labourers
here are fed up with being abused and exploited and how Kuwait is being
spotlighted for that exploitation? Or maybe they had just been working so hard
on the proposal to prevent expats from leaving the country without their
sponsors' permission that they haven't had time to read a newspaper.