Earlier this month, an exclusive report by The Sunday Telegraph revealed the dire conditions that African migrants in Saudi Arabia have been forced to live in during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In a bid to quell the spread of the infectious disease, Saudi authorities are holding at least hundreds, if not thousands, of migrants in tightly-packed detention centers.
Leaked images from the center show migrants crammed together in small rooms with barred windows, with corpses of those who have died from heatstroke, hunger, thirst, and disease strewn about. Those that survive or don’t commit suicide are beaten every day” with “whips and electric cords”, “treated like animals”, and forced to sleep and eat in their own filth that overflows from the toilets.
The mistreatment of migrant labor has become a common occurrence in the oil-rich country, where foreign workers make up roughly 20% of the population, generally working in low-paid physically taxing jobs in construction and domestic work.
However, the abuse of foreign workers is not unique to Saudi Arabia. In fact, countries across the Middle East operate what can only be described as a modern-day slavery ring.
Workers are brought in under what is known as the kafala system, wherein they essentially become the property of employers. Desperate to support their impoverished families back home, many people travel to the region in search of work without a full understanding of the minutiae of the job details. After employers pay agencies a brokerage fee, they become the workers’ official sponsors. Under the terms of the kafala system, however, workers cannot quit their job or leave the country without their sponsor’s permission, and those same sponsors withhold their passports and salaries and even demand payment to authorize their release.
Workers can be paid as little as 80 cents an hour and be forced to eat leftovers and be on call throughout the day with no time off. They are also subjected to intense physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, harassment, and intimidation. Law enforcement agencies offer little respite, and generally send battle-weary workers right back to their abusers when they dare to raise any alarms.
On one level, this is due to the fact that the system that enables this abuse is grounded in law. However, on another level, it can be attributed to the fact that negative attitudes towards foreign workers are endemic across the region and across households. For instance, in Kuwait, nine out of ten households employ a domestic worker; in Oman, there are 130,000 female migrant domestic workers; in Lebanon, there are 250,000; in Qatar, migrant workers constitute 94% of the labor force and 86% of the population; and in Jordan, foreigners comprise 60% of the labor force, with an estimated 31,000 people living in modern slavery in the country. The majority of these foreigners come from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Uganda, and Ethiopia.
This situation is prevalent in countries across the Middle East, including but not limited to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon, and Jordan. There are an estimated two million people living in modern slavery in the region.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a solution in sight, especially considering how openly these worker agencies—who can only be described as slave traders—operate. For instance, many listings are made via Facebook and Instagram using “algorithm-boosted hashtags”, with sales taking place over private messages. Others use apps—such as 4Sale, Orient, and HomeMaker—that have been approved by Google Play and Apple’s App Store. These apps openly sell domestic workers, allowing users to filter by race, price, and gender; many of these apps have their own websites as well.
It has been suggested that the countries from where these workers hail should place pressure on Middle Eastern countries to ensure worker safety and put in place safeguards against the exploitation of foreign workers. India, in particular, holds significant economic power and influence in the region and can make this one of the cornerstones of diplomatic and economic engagements with the offending countries.
However, given that the home countries of foreign laborers have such minimal protections for workers within their own borders, it is unclear how they can press Middle Eastern countries to follow standards that they themselves do not uphold. In fact, according to the Global Slavery Index, close to half of the enslaved people across the globe live in India alone. In fact, rather than addressing this problem, the Indian government has actively sought to discredit reports that highlight the extent of the problem so as to not weaken the country’s image.
In such situations, the world often looks to the West for its norm and agenda-setting ability, which is enhanced by its unique and disproportionate control over international institutions that set these guidelines. The economic and reputational costs of falling afoul of these standards often act as a deterrent. Yet, these same Western countries profit from grossly underpaid foreign labor as well. For example, Algeria acts as a medium for migrants, refugees, and minorities to be trafficked to Europe, where they are then placed in a renewed cycle of “sexual exploitation and forced labor”.
Even those who arrive through formal structures, such as seasonal workers, are often thrust into similarly trying environments. Many seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers in Spain, for example, come from Africa and live in makeshift “shanty towns” like “animals”; many of their living arrangements lack proper ventilation, toilets, running water, sanitation, and electricity.
In an investigation by the BBC, one of these workers said, “If you want to work like a slave, there’s a lot of work. But, if you ask for your rights, you’re out.” Hours worked are purposely undercounted so as to reduce wages that are already well below the minimum wage, and workers are denied breaks in conditions that can exceed 50°C.
Seasonal workers in Canada, the United States (US), and all across Europe have described similar experiences. While the wages and workplace conditions for foreign workers in these countries are undoubtedly better than those in the Middle East, it would nonetheless be hypocritical for Western nations to question their Middle Eastern counterparts.
Therefore, some have said that the responsibility lies with international institutions like the United Nations (UN) to usher in a transformative change on how the world thinks about migrant labor. However, this ignores that such institutions do not exist in a vacuum. They are populated by those same countries where these issues are so prevalent.
The onus thus rests on the nations themselves. Qatar, for instance, disbanded its kafala system and implemented an “evidence-based minimum wage law that applies to all nationalities”. It has also eliminated the exit visa requirement for all workers, which previously stipulated that foreign workers must obtain a no objection certificate (NOC) from their employer to change their job or leave the country.
It is now imperative that other Middle Eastern states follow Qatar’s lead. However, if the experiences of seasonal workers in the West are anything to go by, the kafala system can easily be replaced by something that is equally exploitative and reminiscent of slavery. One senses that there is a need for a transformative change in how the world thinks about, and values and rewards labor as a whole, both of foreign workers and otherwise.