DOHA - The Kafala (sponsorship) system in the GCC countries needs to be reviewed and replaced by a more transparent system that can protect the basic rights of the large number of foreign workers in the region, says a senior official of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Dr Azfar Khan, senior migrant policy specialist at ILO, is in Doha to attend the symposium on 'labour market in the GCC countries' being held at the Millennium Hotel.
Talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the conference yesterday, Khan said the ILO has been working towards providing a uniform set of guidelines to the GCC countries regarding management of their migrant workforce.
"ILO is not a supervisory body. Our role is to help the member countries develop rules and regulations concerning the labour sector, including the migrant workers. We have got invitations from several GCC countries like the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, seeking assistance in this process. Our representatives will be visiting these countries very soon," said Khan.
He felt that the sponsorship system has led to widespread human rights violations and exploitation of the migrant workforce in the region. Men and women have been forced to work in slave-like conditions since the present system neither guarantees their rights nor allows them to change jobs.
"The Kafala system must be reviewed since it has been badly misused against the workers. ILO has concerns about the condition of the migrant workers in the region," said Khan.
He, however, added that the companies, not the governments, are to be blamed for most of the human rights abuses taking place in the region.
There should be a bilateral agreement between the migrant worker and the employer that clearly defines the rights and privileges of the latter. The contract should be binding for a certain period, agreed by both parties, and when it expires, the worker must be allowed to shift jobs, if he or she wishes so.
Non-payment of salaries is a very common problem in this region faced mostly by unskilled and semi-skilled expatriate workers. This can be addressed by making it compulsory for all employers to pay the workers' salaries to a certain bank at the end of every month. This will help the authorities to identify the erring companies and take appropriate action, said Khan.
He said the exploitation of low-paid migrant workers is not an issue limited to the Middle East, but it happens even in the developed western countries.
Several European countries like Italy, Spain, Malta and Germany have been facing the problem of "irregular migrants", a term used for unskilled migrant workers coming from some African and East European countries.
Many of these workers are being paid their wages across the counter, without a job contract. This is an easy way to overcome the labour laws of the respective countries, which force the employers to secure the rights of migrant workers.
© The Peninsula 2007
