Human Trafficking in [Kuwait Street Children in [Kuwait] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Kuwait] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In
the early years of the 21st Century
- 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Kuwait.htm
Kuwait is
a destination country for men and women trafficked for the purposes of forced
labor. The majority of trafficking victims are from among the over 500,000
foreign women recruited for domestic service work in Kuwait. Men and women
migrate from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh in search of work in the domestic and sanitation industries.
Although they migrate willingly to Kuwait, upon arrival some are subjected to
conditions of forced labor from their “sponsors” and labor agents, such as
withholding of passports, confinement, physical sexual abuse and threats of
such abuse or other serious harm, and non-payment of wages with the intent of
compelling their continued service. Adult female migrant workers are
particularly vulnerable, and consequently are often victims of sexual
exploitation and forced prostitution.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Forced Labor and Debt Bondage Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights,
1995 www.webster.edu/~woolflm/forcedlabor.html [accessed 17 February 2011] [scroll down] ***
ARCHIVES *** Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61692.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
country is a destination for men, women, and children trafficked primarily
from The physical or sexual abuse of
foreign women working as domestic servants was a problem. Some employers
physically abused foreign women working as domestic servants, and despite
economic and social difficulties for a domestic servant to lodge a complaint,
these women continued to report such abuse. The local press devoted considerable
attention to the problem, and both the police and courts have taken action
against employers when presented with evidence of serious abuse. Some rapes
resulted in pregnancies, and there were reports of illegal abortions.
Occasionally domestic workers were charged with assaulting their employers;
in such cases the workers claimed that they acted in response to physical
abuse or poor working conditions. Human Rights Reports » 2003
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27931.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] WOMEN - There were some reports of women,
mainly from Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights UN COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
CESCR, Thirty-second session, 26 April-14 May 2004 – Distributed 7 June 2004 www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/%28Symbol%29/E.C.12.1.Add.98.En [accessed 29 August 2011] [41] The Committee recommends that
the State party take effective measures to combat trafficking in persons,
especially in women and children, by ensuring, inter alia, that those
responsible for trafficking are prosecuted, and to ratify the Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children, of 2001. The Committee recommends that the State party establish
support services for victims of trafficking and take steps to sensitize law
enforcement officials and the general public to the gravity of this issue. 200 Kuwaitis, 40 firms blacklisted over human trafficking kuwaitnepalnews.wordpress.com/kuwait-crime-news/ [accessed 17 February 2011] [scroll down] HUMAN TRADERS, FIRMS BANNED - Two hundred Kuwaitis and 40
companies have been blacklisted and banned from recruiting domestic laborers
due to their alleged involvement in human trafficking, Al-Watan
Arabic daily quoted informed sources as saying. Meanwhile, 500 expatriates were arrested
for violating the residency law and were referred to authorities. Governing Justly and Combating Human Trafficking: The
Linkages Mark P. Lagon, Director, Office
to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Remarks at the Freedom
House-SAIS "Human Trafficking and Freedom" Event, At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 7 September 2011] In many countries in the Xinhua www.twocircles.net/2007jun27/kuwait_lashes_u_s_human_rights_report.html [accessed 17 February 2011] Rejecting the accusation made by
the U.S. report saying Kuwaitis running human trafficking in an excuse of
reducing global joblessness, the committee said in the statement that
"The State of Kuwait opens its arms to those incoming workers and even
provides them with all available job opportunities, unlike many other
countries which combat and deport them on the grounds of fighting illegal
immigration." "By doing so,
Kuwait ought to be commended, appreciated and even placed on an honors
list," it added. Human trafficking www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=OTY4NzI4NjQw [accessed 28 November 2010] New labor regulations and civilized
working laws that leave no place for the sponsor's moods and thoughts must be
enforced. One issue that many maids complain about is that they have no
rights in deciding their place of work meaning they have no say when their
sponsor moves them from one house to another, like the house of a sponsor's
relative or friend. If we had a clear law to prevent
their sponsors from acting freely in this matter, many troubles could be
solved in this regard. Not all sponsors are doing this, but some are so we
have to think about how to eliminate such actions. Giving a day off for a
maid seems a small issue but it was a problem for many maids here. House
maids are not supposed to work around the clock and their rights in these
matters must be clear and must be respected by their sponsors. The wages and the means of payment
are also problems for many workers and they need a policy to protect their
rights and not only the sponsor's rights. These matters started as a molehill
but have now turned into a mountain because there has never been a visible
solution to handle it over the years. The sponsorship system needs a quick
revision and update based on international laws and human rights laws
especially regarding working hours and wages with days off. New study shames human traffickers Patrick Mathangani, The
Standard, May 11, 2007 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 7 September 2011] Countries in the A new report by an international
trade unions’ umbrella organisation says Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates and Yemen are notorious destinations for women trafficked from
Kenya. Its report, ‘Trafficking in
Persons — The Eastern Africa Situation’, notes that women and children were favourite targets for well-organised
trafficking rings, which operate freely for lack of solid laws against the
vice. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 4 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7640 [accessed 17 February 2011] Human Rights Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/kuwait [accessed 17 February 2011] Library of Congress Call Number DS247.A13 P47 1994 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/kwtoc.html [accessed 17 February 2011] Two sides of women's oppression Sara Flounders, Workers World newspaper, March 11, 2004 www.workers.org/ww/2004/women0311.php [accessed 17 February 2011] DISMANTLING GUARANTEED RIGHTS - In these societies women are
literally slaves, imprisoned in the home and held captive within a repressive
patriarchal system. They have no right to work or control their own funds or
even to drive a car. They cannot even travel unaccompanied by a male family
member. They have no right to vote or to participate in any form of political
life. In Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and
throughout the oil-rich Gulf states, women have no rights that any man is
bound to respect. They have no right to decide who they will marry, nor do
they have a right to divorce, even from an abusive husband. Education is
separate--and so unequal that most women in oil-rich Saudi Arabia are still
illiterate. Ansar Burney Trust rescues two more
'Child Camel Jockeys' in UAE At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 7 September 2011] The Ansar
Burney Welfare Trust International is the only human rights organisation working since last several years practically
against slave labour in Slavery of
Children and women in Morteza Aminmansour,
Persian Journal, Jun 20, 2004 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 7 September 2011] Exact number of victims is
impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in UAE, there has
been increase in the number of teen-age girls in prostitution (forced to work
from Forced Labor and Debt Bondage Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights,
1995 www.webster.edu/~woolflm/forcedlabor.html [accessed 17 February 2011] [scroll down] Campaigning against Bonded Labour International Federation of Workers' Education
Associations IFWEA Journal, December 2000 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 7 September 2011] MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS
- The experience
of Despite Alice’s qualification as a
civil engineer in Manila, the pay was not enough to support her and her
family. She answered an advert
recruiting engineers to Kuwait offering 215 Pounds per month -- six times her
Philippine salary. Against her
expected salary her family borrowed money so she could pay the agency's fee,
half of which was due before leaving Manila.
Upon arriving in Kuwait City she found that there were no civil
engineering posts, only jobs for maids at a salary considerably less than she
was promised. With no money to pay the
agency or to pay for the flight back home, she had no choice but to sign a
contract to work as a domestic. Her day began at 5:30am and only
ended once all of the adults had gone to bed, which was regularly after
2am. She had no time off, not even to
go to church or to write letters home. After two and a half years in
Kuwait Alice was taken to London.
Following an attack in which her employer tried to rape her she fled.
It was the first time she had been out of the house. The New Slavery Kevin Bales, "Disposable People: New Slavery in the
Global Economy" [accessed 17 February 2011] WHAT DOES RACE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
- It is true that in some countries there are ethnic or religious
differences between slaves and slaveholders. In Pakistan, for example, many
enslave brickmakers are Christians while the
slaveholders are Muslim. In India slave and slaveholder may be from different
castes. In Thailand they may come from different regions of the country and
are much more likely to be women. But in Pakistan there are Christians who
are not slaves, in India members of the same caste who are free. Their caste
or religion simply reflects their vulnerability to enslavement; it doesn't
cause it. Only in one country, Mauritania, does the racism of the old slavery
persist -- there black slaves are held by Arab slaveholders, and race is a
key division. To be sure, some cultures are more divided along racial lines
than others. Japanese culture strongly distinguishes the Japanese as
different from everyone else, and so enslaved prostitutes in Japan are more
likely to be Thai, Philippine, or European women -- although they may be
Japanese. Even here, the key difference is not racial but economic: Japanese
women are not nearly so vulnerable and desperate as Thais or Filipinas. And
the Thai women are available for shipment to Japan because Thais are
enslaving Thais. The same pattern
occurs in the oil-rich states of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where Muslim
Arabs promiscuously enslave Sri Lankan Hindus, Filipino Christians, and
Nigerian Muslims. The common denominator is poverty, not color. Behind every
assertion of ethnic difference is the reality of economic disparity. A death sentence for a young Filipino maid highlights the
problem of abuse of Asian servants Michael S. Serrill, Reported by
Scott MacLeod/Al-Ain and Nelly Sindayen/Manila,
TIME, October 23, 1995 housemaidsabuse.blogspot.com/2011/05/death-sentence-for-young-filipino-maid.html [accessed 17 February 2011] Despite the settlement, the case
cast a spotlight on a dark practice throughout the Worse, the maids find themselves
in virtual bondage to their employers, who almost without exception
confiscate the servants' passports to prevent them from walking out before
fulfilling their typical two-year contract. It is common for the maids to be
forced to work from dawn to midnight, seven days a week. Often they are fed
scraps and leftovers, are beaten and verbally abused and, in the worst cases,
raped and murdered. Only in the most egregious instances is an employer ever
charged with sexual abuse or assault. The Overthrow Of The www.rense.com/general35/skolov30.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] Point by point, I discussed the
findings of a unit of the United Nations which had documented a terrible
truth. Here it was, late in the 20th Century, I told the crowd, that Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, according to undisputed details of the U.N. unit, each had
huge numbers of BLACK CHATTEL SLAVES. Saudi, according to the findings, had
about one hundred thousand such slaves and Kuwait about fifty thousand of the
same. Work Worries - Women going abroad to work is leading to
more human trafficking Lanka Business Online, 04 Mar 2005 www.lankabusinessonline.com/fullstory.php?nid=1777048731 [accessed 17 February 2011] Sri Lankan women are trafficked to
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Human Trafficking in [Kuwait Street Children in [Kuwait] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Kuwait] [other countries]