UPDATES TO KAFALA
The definitive place to get the latest updates on Kafala.
June 16, 2021 | English
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Aster Goshu squints as she speaks quietly into the telephone’s digicam. “They lock me in the home when they leave,” she says in Arabic, talking in a frantic tone.
“I spend my days crying,” she provides, pointing to the darkish circles underneath her swollen eyes. “I’ve cried so much that I have trouble seeing things from a distance.”
“My employers say, ‘you Ethiopians will always be poor, what difference would it make?’” she provides, explaining that she’s solely acquired a wage for 3 months of the 4 years she is owed. “I beg you to help me escape this home.”
June 15, 2021 | Italian
Eccoli lì, in tanti, una moltitudine. Sono stremati, dopo un lungo turno di lavoro e ore di protesta. Aspettano una decisione della monarchia araba che possa cambiare la loro vita, togliendo loro le moderne catene della schiavitù – che non sono di metallo, ma di burocrazia. Vengono da tutto il mondo, specialmente dall’Asia e dell’Africa. Tutti con il giubbotto arancione, che applaudono felici. Non sono tifosi ad una partita di calcio. Sono gli schiavi della Kafala che, a Doha ricevono la notizia che la legge sia stata riformata. Nei Paesi del Golfo Persico abitano circa 18 milioni di immigrati ufficiali su una popolazione totale di 42 milioni. Sono loro che si rallegrano per le riforme concesse dalle monarchie assolute dei paesi arabi.
June 15, 2021 | English
Faced with dire economic circumstances and discrimination, migrant workers in Lebanon rely on each other to survive, co-founder of Volunteer Circle Nadine Makarem writes.
June 14, 2021 | English
Dodging pulped food and glass shards, I walk the narrow and winding streets of Beirut up a hill in Hamra, one of the city’s main commercial districts, to the Q Hotel, with its crumbling sign and exposed brick façade. I make my way to the third floor, room 304, where, between ancient cupboards and worn carpets, time seems to have stopped in the 1950s. Mariema — her back hunched, her blue shirt sagging, her face hollow — is lying on a bed with its crumpled sheet on the floor.
May 26, 2021 | English
Migrant workers in Lebanon have been hit hard by its multiple crises and half of them left jobless, the U.N. warned Wednesday, calling for voluntary returns to be scaled up.
The combined effects of Lebanon’s economic collapse, the Covid-19 pandemic and last year’s deadly Beirut port explosion have worsened already dire living conditions for migrant workers.
May 25, 2021 | English
Horrific rights abuses against migrant domestic workers are being overshadowed amid an economic crisis in Lebanon We need your name – sign the open letter to Lebanon’s Ministry of Labour calling for better protections for domestic workers.
April 22, 2021 | English
KUWAIT CITY: A UN rights expert on Thursday urged Kuwait to abolish its “kafala” system for foreign workers which has long been criticized as a form of bonded labor or even slavery.
April 21, 2021 | English
Thousands of families in Lebanon can no longer afford to buy food. Between a collapsing economy, damage to the capital following the port explosion last August, and soaring Covid-19 cases, Lebanon teeters on the brink.
While the social and economic climate has reduced the quality of life for everyone in the country, women and girls have been disproportionately affected in ways both obvious and invisible.
April 21, 2021 | English
Statement by the Kuwait Society for Human Rights on the decision not to renew work permits for persons over 60 years old.
April 12, 2021 | English
As Lebanon’s economy and currency collapse, foreign domestic workers struggle to make ends meet, prompting many to consider returning home