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