Recruitment agency owners slam private sector labor law

In today's Kuwait Times we read of the slave trader's holding a press conference lamenting their loss of business. What else would you expect. Tough!

Recruitment agency owners slam private sector labor law
Published Date: February 16, 2010
By Rawan Khalid, Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The owners of local employment and recruitment agencies held a press conference on Sunday at the Hyatt Hotel to protest at the problems they will face under the recently passed private sector labor law. Under the new legislation, a state-owned company will assume responsibility for recruiting foreign staff, replacing the existing private sector agencies. Our aim in holding this conference today is to publicize the suffering of the owners of domestic staff recruitment agencies," said Abdulaziz Al-Ali, the former head of the Union of Domestic Staff Recruitment Agencies. "The other issue to be discussed today is the establishment of a shareholding company that will assume the recruitment duties currently performed by private sector employment agencies.

Ali-Ali criticized the establishment of the state-owned recruitment body, saying, "The purpose for establishing this company is to remove the name of Kuwait from the blacklist and preserve the rights of domestic staff, including their rights to food, accommodation, health insurance and return tickets." The existence of this body will "compel private sector domestic staff recruitment agencies to increase the cost of recruiting maids by opening training centers for maids in their home countries to teach them about Kuwaiti society and traditions.

Six branches of the state-owned company will be opened, one in each of Kuwait's governorates, with the cost of insurance rising from KD 5,000 to KD 20,000 in order to break the monopoly of private sector recruitment agencies, obliging the agencies to offer apartments with full facilities, reduce sponsorship periods from six months to 100 days, coordinate with the embassies to eliminate the phenomenon of maids running away from their employers, and bring competition under control.

Al-Ali also complained about what he said was a smear campaign waged by the Ministry of Interior against private sector domestic staff recruitment agencies, which he said had helped to tarnish the country's reputation with human rights bodies. He further condemned the new regulation that maids must be provided with uniforms, saying that this is in itself a violation of their human rights and contrary to human rights organizations' guidelines.

Assad Al-Derbas, the owner of one local domestic staff recruitment agency, condemned the new legislation, saying, "The aim of today's gathering is to clarify the true picture on the issue of human rights violations which Kuwait was accused of. The solution to this problem is very simple in our opinion. We are not responsible for this issue, as the facts show; we are the owners of these offices and this is the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor's problem.

The establishment of the state-owned domestic staff recruitment agency will simply increase the magnitude of the problems in this area, Al-Debras insisted, since the new body will have a monopoly, leading to sponsorship cost increases for the employers of domestic staff, which could reach as high as KD 1,000 per maid.

Another domestic staff recruitment agency owner present at Sunday's press conference, Khalid Al-Qallaf, said that the problems surrounding the employment of maids are based in the lack of regulations covering these staff and the non-existence of any comprehensive legislation on employing domestic staff. Because of this, he claimed, some sponsors violate their maids' rights, with a number failing to pay their maids any salary at all before sending them back to their home countries. Al-Qallaf was also critical of the media, saying that it had focused on the negative aspects of domestic workers' employment in Kuwait, which had tarnished Kuwait's reputation abroad.

However, leaving aside the slave traders vested interests in maintaining the status quo, there are a host of issues which the Government will need to address, in order for this not to be one failed system, replaced by another bad system. Should we be optimistic that a Kuwaiti government-run organisation will provide a better service to uphold the human rights of domestic workers and treat them with dignity and respect?

Unfortunately, whilst this initiative may eliminate some abuses in the slave trading process, at the end of the day abuses will continue once the domestic workers are bought/hired by end-users. Perhaps there should be some vetting of who can hire a maid... if you have been convicted of maid-abuse in the past.... sorry, no chance of getting another one. Hmmm... that would mean actually convicting people of abusing maids. Sounds like a good place to start in my opinion, if you want to make it socially unacceptable to mistreat your staff.

Banning recruitment of Indonesian maids is not so good for business

From today's Arab Times...

Indonesia urged to lift ban on domestic workers recruitment

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 22: The Chairperson of the Kuwait Union of Domestic Workers’ Office Owners Fadhel Ashkanani appealed to concerned authorities in Indonesia to lift the ban on the recruitment of domestic workers to Kuwait, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
Ashkanani wondered why the Indonesian government continues to place a ban on the recruitment of workers to Kuwait despite efforts by the government to break barriers confronting the workers. He said the government has been resolving issues concerning the Indonesian workers, especially those piling up at the Indonesian Embassy. He claimed that the government has been providing facilities to solve the problems of workers, while they cooperate with the embassy to ensure the safe return of those who are determined to go back home.

Ashkanani criticized the justification for the continued ban due to the intention of the Indonesian government to include a clause to the subsisting agreement in that regard. “The sudden ban on recruitment has adverse implications on both parties, and we can continue working based on the current agreement until we fashion a new one”, he suggested.

So the largest trader in Indonesian slaves wonders why Indonesian government is putting a ban on recruitment of domestic workers... maybe the Indonesian government is displaying some spine and is concerned about the lack of human rights in Kuwait, and the number of maids 'piling up' at the Embassy using Ashkanani's (reportedly) own words.

Lots to do on Human Rights in Kuwait

In today's Arab Times...

Better, says HRW on Kuwait rights ... Lot still to do

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 20,
(Agencies): Human Rights Watch (HRW) has praised Kuwait for its improved record in some aspects of women’s human rights but says a lot still needs to be done. In its annual report released Wednesday, HRW enumerated various human rights aspects in which Kuwaiti women suffer broad discrimination like nationality, residency and family law, not to mention their economic rights, even if they gained the right to vote and run for office in 2005. HRW also criticized Kuwait for excluding the stateless persons (Bedouns) from full citizenship despite their long-term roots in Kuwaiti territory.

“Kuwait’s nationality law denies Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis right to pass their nationality on to their children and spouses — a right enjoyed by Kuwaiti men married to foreigners. The law also discriminates against women in residency rights, allowing the spouses of Kuwait men but not of Kuwaiti women to be in Kuwait without employment and to qualify for citizenship after 10 years of marriage,” the report said.

“The government grants low-interest housing loans only to Kuwaiti men; Kuwaiti women, whether single or married, are ineligible. Upon divorce, married women lose their claim to homes purchased through this program, even if they made payments on the loan. A single mother can claim rent subsidy only if she intends not to remarry,” added the report. “There exists no data on the prevalence of violence against women in Kuwait. Victims are often reluctant to file complaints with the police because redress for domestic abuse through the criminal justice system remains elusive. Perpetrators are rarely arrested even when women file with the police complaints that are supported by medico-legal evidence.

“Kuwait hosts approximately 120,000 stateless persons, known as the Bedoun. The state does not recognize the right of these long-time residents to Kuwaiti nationality or permanent residency. Children of the Bedoun are also stateless,” the report said.
“As a consequence of their statelessness, the Bedoun cannot freely leave and return to Kuwait; the government issues them one-time travel documents at its discretion. As non-Kuwaitis, they face restrictions in employment, healthcare, education, marriage, and founding a family.”
Talking about freedom of expression and media the report said: In separate cases in October 2009, courts fined two Kuwaiti members of Parliament KD 3,000 ($10,500) each for “slandering the government.” The first was fined for criticizing the Interior Ministry’s treatment of the Bedoun, and the second for making allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Health.
“Kuwaiti authorities in August 2009 banned the TV show Your Voice is Heard after it criticized officials. A 2006 reform of the press law replaced imprisonment as punishment for infractions of the law with high fines,” the report added.

On migrant worker rights, the report said, “More than one million foreign nationals reside in Kuwait, constituting an estimated 80 percent of the country’s workforce. Many of them experience exploitative labor conditions including private employers who confiscate their passports or who do not pay their wages, claiming they need to recoup their fees for hiring the worker. Migrant workers themselves often pay exorbitant recruitment fees to labor agents in their home countries, and must then work off their debt in Kuwait. Kuwaiti law limits wage deductions for debt, but these
limits are not enforced in practice.

Approximately 700,000 migrant women — chiefly from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines — are employed in Kuwait as full-time live-in domestic workers. Their exclusion under the current labor law deprives them of protections afforded other workers, such as a weekly rest day and limits on working hours. Many domestic workers complain of confinement in the house, long working hours without rest, months or years of unpaid wages, and sometimes verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Domestic workers who fled abusive situations at their workplace have often become stranded at their embassies, at deportation centers, or at recruitment agencies. In October 2009 Indonesia banned further migration of domestic workers to Kuwait in response to having 600 workers trapped in its embassy.

“A major barrier to the redress of labor abuses is the sponsorship (kafala) system by which a migrant worker’s legal residence in Kuwait is tied to his or her employer, who serves as a ‘sponsor.’ Migrant workers can only transfer employment with their sponsor’s consent, although a reform in August 2009 frees them of this requirement if they have worked more than three years (migrant domestic workers do not benefit from this provision). Sponsorship traps workers in abusive situations, including in situations of forced labor, and blocks their access to means of redress. If an employer
withdraws sponsorship, workers who flee abusive workplaces can be arrested and deported for being out of status in the country. Kuwaiti law enforcement officials rarely bring to justice Kuwaitis who abuse their powers as sponsors,” the report concluded.

On this last point, actually, it appears that is even worse than this... the August 2009 reform allowing expatriate workers to transfer employment without consent after three years is still complicated as the Legal Clinic in the same newspaper highlights here. A lawyer responding to a letter to the Editor says if your old employer doesn't release you, you have to wait for a Shoun hearing and their permission to transfer.

Several years ago I faced a similar situation where I had resigned from one bank employer and started with another, only for the first bank to refuse to release me. Apparently, they are not used to employees resigning before they have decided to get rid of you. (I had been informed not long after starting in the bank, that no one ever leaves the bank of their own accord!). It took a personal letter to the CEO to get a 'release', so I am not sure to this day whether he was blocking my release, or it was his underlings.

So I saved myself an unnecessary flight out and back into Kuwait. Unfortunately, the new employer insisted as its 'HR policy' that I had to go through the standard introduction for new expatriates in Kuwait (and therefore totally unnecessary) finger-printing and medical screening checks again. And again, the second employer was rather disappointed when I left 18 months later. Unintentionally they had their revenge (unintentionally because of their incompetence, not malice) by making me fly back to Kuwait and waste 3 of my working days to get my residency visa cancelled.