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Hello and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Episode two Almanac, the Oxford Middle East podcast.

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My name is Foote's Focus, and today I'm joined by Hojjati Madoff and Felix Walker to discuss the origins of the Middle East's Catholic system,

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its role in an effect on societies, the impact of corollaries or this future metrically.

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Live mainly from Asia, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

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Kafala system is modern day slavery. There's no two ways about it.

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People think that they have a right to have a migrant domestic worker and live in their home 24/7, even if there's no good finance system.

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I think they three, they can treat us equally.

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Human Rights Watch has criticised this system of sponsorship in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which ties migrant workers to local sponsors.

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Of course, we have the capital. But without that, many projects would never have seen the light of day.

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We are hoping that other countries will also follow suit and slowly abolish kefala because it is not in line with international standards.

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So before we start discussing the Catholicism itself, I think it's very important to first get a definition of what it is and it's like a history.

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So, Felix, would you stop giving a definition, please? Sure.

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So basically, the kafala system is a form of legal migration structure that exists in Gulf countries and in Lebanon and in Jordan.

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And it basically operates through a sponsor called Caffeine.

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Who is a national of one of those countries and is sponsored called Makhoul, which is the migrant worker that is coming to these countries for a job.

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The kefala system basically works by outsourcing the management and the control over the migrant labour from the state to the citizen himself,

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who is the employer and who wields high amounts of control over the person working for him.

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And it is important to remember that even though people believe that the kafala system is treated as a bloc with common problems and policies,

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there is diversity within the system itself as to the type of restrictions and their application.

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So, for example, in the countries of the GCSE or workers, no matter where they're from or subject to the restrictions of the kafala system,

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whilst in Arab states such as Lebanon and Jordan,

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there exists a differentiation in the control exercised over migrant workers and who works under this system.

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So in Lebanon, kefala regulates low skilled workers coming primarily from Asia and Africa, but not those coming from Syria and Egypt, for example.

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And in Jordan, the Kefalas system is only relevant to migrant workers recruited by nationals and not those working in qualified industrial zones.

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Harjo Do you want to say something about history? So there are quite a few theories as to why the kafala system came from.

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I think the most popular is I started in the 1950s two to rush.

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It does hold some truth to it. I think the more convincing theory is that the sponsorship system,

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kafala system is a product of the British colonial era and Bahrain was a particularly fruitful pearling industry.

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And during the summer high season, migrants who were primarily colonised peoples of the British Empire's Indians would come

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to Bahrain and work on the ships and contribute to the pending industry and the beef.

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Originally, this was incredibly unregulated and information trends industry was very unclear.

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But then there began the process of formalisation which occurred simultaneously to the formalisation of these countries their borders,

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their legal institutions and their travel structures,

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which meant that in the thirties, for someone to become a diver on these ships,

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they require to have an entry visa, an exit visa, no objection certificate when they wanted to leave the country.

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All aspects of the kafala system that we see today.

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And I think what really defined this fledgling kafala system and allowed it to transition from fledging to

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find a system to this full blown kafala system that we have today was the 1945 oil discovery in Kuwait.

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Originally, Kuwaitis attempted to circumvent British requirements by abolishing visa requirements for the Arabs.

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But it became immediately obvious that these Arabs imported along with their families,

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progressive political ideas that pose challenges to ruling families in the Gulf.

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So ideas such as Panopto Barisan, Nasserism, Communism and socialism, and I think it was during this period 1960s,

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especially when this idea of almost a two tier system came into play,

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quite began to introduce greater benefits to its citizenry,

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and citizenship became something only given to those with one or two parents, meaning only Kuwaiti citizens could sponsor workers.

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And so they had direct control over the migrant worker sector and industry.

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And I think this is what one could say was the beginning of the ethnocracy in the

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GCSE and truly defined the way that golf would approach migration for the weakest.

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I think that's the importance of the kefala system on the head, because there's two things which create the governmental interest for the Catholicism.

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The first one is the fact that it gives the citizens of a country an inordinate amount of power as they don't have that through democratic means.

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And the second one is, as you mentioned, Hodgett, that it creates a very large body of a political workers.

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During the 60s, 70s, the Gulf did have a large number of Arab workers,

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but it would also bring their families for when more migrants came from Southeast Asia.

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They, as you said, would often be single men not bringing their families and not having any interest

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in spreading to the Arab nationalist ideology or anything else in the region,

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making them the perfect work in the Gulf States.

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You know, the same applies today with with workers from Europe and America as well.

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They are very little interest in regional politics and are therefore very stable people to have within the country.

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In reference to South Asian migrants, it's actually really important to understand this migration isn't a new phenomena.

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And migration from South Asia to the Persian Gulf to the Iranian peninsula has been

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occurring and has been documented as early as in 1822 and definitely earlier.

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And I think for a lot of people, it's assumed that this is a very new development.

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But actually it's been going on for a really long time. These communities have a very longstanding relationship with communities in the Gulf.

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That brings us into another question, which is why these people from South Asia and Southeast Asia end up travelling to the coast.

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Is if you want to answer that question on why that's the case. There is a white South Asian workers migrate to the Gulf primarily is because the

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salary that they receive has a greater purchasing power in their respective countries.

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And as often is the case with a lot of these construction workers, accommodation is provided for them.

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And so they're able to send home the majority of their salaries as remittances.

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Unlike, for example, Bangladesh receives over 50 billion dollars a year in remittances.

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And so this makes up a very important part of the country's economy.

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Now, I think the most important thing here is understanding that there is a demand for these migrant workers that no matter where they go,

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they there will be work for them because of how much the Gulf now relies on construction work to preserve its economic revenue.

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But there's also raise one of the questions, though, because they might want to come to the Middle East for the way they come to

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the Middle East is of not quite as easy or straightforward as for portrayed,

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because there is also a large problem with, for example, debt bondage or false advertising,

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which has very serious consequences for their lives once they come into the Middle East.

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There's a lot of agencies that falsely advertise positions in the UAE, in the GCT in general.

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And then when the workers arrive in the country, they actually their passports are confiscated and then they're forced into labour.

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There's a lot more tedious and a lot more strenuous than was previously advertised.

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And I think that's really common and is akin to essentially human trafficking, a modern slave labour.

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And then once they arrive, there is various forms of wage abuses, such as being underpaid or not even being paid,

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unfair business practises such as the paid when paid clause,

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which basically allows subcontractors that have not been paid to delay payments to the workers.

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They also face some of the employers, withhold the workers A.T.M. cards.

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Also, like you mentioned jotter previously there,

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they're victims of deceptive recruitment practises in both the sending and receiving countries with illegal visa traders.

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And it does become a form of human trafficking. In Qatar, for example,

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workers have to pay from seven hundred dollars to two thousand six hundred dollars to

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secure jobs to be able to go to Qatar as they face wage abuses upon their rivals,

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being able to first pay that back and then send remittances home is extremely difficult.

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And very often they're not even able to actually come out of the country having earned any money yet.

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But just to give the listeners some context, because they say they have to pay up to two thousand dollars to get into the country,

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you know, roughly how much they earn a week or a month when they're there.

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I guess it varies depending on the job, because we have to also remember that not just low skilled or low income workers are affected,

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is also higher income professional expatriate workers that are also affected.

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And also on top of that, due to wage abuses, it's difficult to know exactly what they're being paid and the oversight,

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you know, international institutions or government have on being able to know what workers are being paid is also very limited,

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especially for domestic workers,

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because being able to regulate what's happening inside the home of an employer who wields their high levels of power is extremely difficult.

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According to Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain,

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the average monthly salary for a migrant domestic worker is between 150 to 200 dollars.

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And as is often the case, deductions may be made for accommodation for food.

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So they don't always receive the total sum set in the very best case scenario.

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They have to work for up to 10 months to pay off the debt they have incurred to the employer.

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And that's. And finally start earning money. That's not ideal when it comes to, for example, living conditions.

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It's also a very well publicised problem that the migrants from Southeast Asia,

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despite building all the buildings in which rich individuals in the Gulf live,

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they don't get to live in them themselves and often find themselves in very crammed labour camps.

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And this is obviously a disaster for Coronado's. But we'll get back to that later in the episode.

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But also especially in Lebanon and the maids in the Gulf, they live together with the families, and that has also become a very large problem.

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So 96 percent of Emirati families are believed to have a domestic worker in their household.

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And because of this development,

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it's become very common for homes and houses to have servants quarters where the domestic workers can live apart from the family.

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But a major problem within this dynamic is that the worker is always accessible, that always accessible to the family,

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meaning that the family can easily over what then can easily demand of them a greater

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time commitment and a greater energy commitment than is acceptable for these workers.

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And also one of the issues that workers face as domestic workers, they weren't even allowed to leave the house without permission.

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And many employers wouldn't even give the permission. In the UAE, for example, when the Cavallo system was being debated a couple years ago,

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some ministers were saying that they shouldn't be allowed out of the house because that

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could increase the chances of them getting into relationships and then coming back pregnant.

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That would cause an issue for the employer because therefore they would have to change migrant worker.

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I think it's definitely very easy to underestimate the role of the domestic worker in the domestic environment that according to recent studies,

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domestic workers in the Emirates especially perform over 80 percent of parental responsibilities,

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meaning that their role in the family is essential and they have been absorbed into the nuclear unit or into the Gulf nuclear unit.

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And as the Gulf population begins to age,

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these domestic workers become even more useful and even more essential as carers and as caregivers to these older communities.

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Typically, countries that apply the kafala system are treated as a block with common problems and policies.

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But however, destination countries have diversity in the Kovalchik system.

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As to the type of restrictions and their application, for example, in the GCSE or workers are subject to the restrictions of the computer system.

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And in Arab states such as Lebanon, Jordan, there exist differentiation in the control exercised over migrant workers.

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So, for example, in Lebanon, the kefala regulates low skilled workers coming primarily from Asia and Africa,

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but not those coming from Syria or other Arab countries, although it depends in what areas are working in in the country.

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Also, like, for example, when Jordan, the kafala system,

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is only relevant to migrant workers recruited by nationals and not those working in qualified industrial zones.

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I think the application of the kafala system to all nationals in the GCSE really

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reinforces the privileges that citizenship in the GCSE affords to its communities.

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And I think that's a really interesting thing to comment on, because in my opinion, that's the whole point of the kafala system,

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is to ensure that this two tier or this pyramid hierarchy remains intact and

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it isn't threatened by this massive influx of migrant workers at any point.

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However, the flipside of that is that the culture of these countries, I mean, relatives or Saudis, is, in their own eyes, distinctly under threat.

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They live in their own countries as minorities. All six of the GCSE states and a top 20 when it comes to how many of their inhabitants of migrants.

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And the consequence of this is also that the whole city or the whole country in some

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cases gets aimed at catering to foreign consumers than those in other countries in Qatar.

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To fill up the house of this, I've been built up enough immoralities and Emirates to fill all the houses, all the jobs which are being created.

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You have this massive pyramid scheme where the only way the economy can function is by catering to millions literally of migrants who come there,

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who work and who consume their goods, who never actually put their roots in those countries, because, as has been discussed earlier,

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it's almost impossible to get a citizenship in these countries. And in addition to that, you have the environmental consequence of this.

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And Qatar is one of the countries which the most exposed to climate change in the world.

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But nothing in their policies or in their behaviour gives an indication that it is a primary

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threat to them at the moment because the whole economy is based on short termism and consumption.

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And that is going to turn out to be a very major problem for them in the future.

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I think the anxiety about this of impending demographic timebomb is very, very tangible in quite a few of these countries,

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especially in the GCSE, so that they have been quite a few state led drivers.

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To increase the number of their citizens employed in public and private sectors.

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And it's called funny names, cauterisation, Emirati ization and Saudization and also Omani ization.

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But essentially,

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they're creating a legal compulsion for companies and NGOs to hire UAE nationals as a priority rather than equally evaluating all applications.

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And I think that's particularly interesting because currently the public sector, for example, in Saudi and in the UAE is dominated by nationals.

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But the reality is there's not enough jobs for the number of nationals that are out there.

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So now the governments have turned to apply pressure to private companies and ensure that

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the private sector props up the national economy as much as the public sector does.

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There are two flip sites that are the first one is for people in Emirates and Qatar.

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It's an advantage working for the government because it's one of the few sectors where they actually are surrounded by people who speak Arabic.

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So for them, it is still a sector within which they can express their own culture.

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The other problem with the colourisation or Saudization or monetisation policies is that many international companies see the requirements of having

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certain C.C.C. nationals within the countries as a cost of doing business rather than something which they're doing out of the good of their hearts.

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I think that's really poignant because these countries are very aware of how much their private sectors are dominated by foreign nationals.

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So, for example, in 2008, Saudi's attempt to reduce the number of work visas to restrict competition and UAE labour

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law states that employment is the right of UAE nationals but is not the right of UAE.

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Non nationals and employees are under G.T. to consider you a nationals before employing foreign nationals.

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On the flip side, termination of employment of UAE nationals is much, much more difficult.

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You aren't allowed to terminate EU nationals in order to hire non-union national.

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And if that is found to be the case, you can be fined over 20000 Emirati terms.

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Is there Heida was a xenophobia there? Well, it's growing.

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And is it towards the low skilled or the higher skilled? Probably towards the higher skilled. I think it goes both ways.

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I think because the lower skilled workers are by far the more numerous in those countries,

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because I know, for example, in the UAE, Indians are the largest ethnic group in the country.

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A lot of distrust to a certain extent towards them about who they are and the feeling that they are encroaching upon the culture of the immoralities.

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But as you say, there's also definitely xenophobia towards the higher skilled migrant labourers

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because they are the ones with whom the citizens have to compete for jobs.

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And because of that, they are often very unhappy about the situation which are and because they feel it's their national right.

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As I mentioned, to have a job, an application is also to have a most prestigious, well regarded job.

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But often companies are more interested in having the higher performing nationals from Western countries to do those jobs.

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There are some good examples of people within the JCC becoming fairly xenophobic.

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There was a well-known Kuwaiti actress who had said that migrants should be expelled into the desert because of them taking up too much space.

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Even now, the term used for a large number of migrants is Bengali.

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Like it doesn't matter if you're from the country, which isn't India, you're still referred to as a Bengali.

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So I think very many of the citizens in those countries are quite sick of the situation in which they find themselves.

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On the other hand, the whole economic system is based on a situation where they are incredibly reliant on foreign labourers.

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I don't see that having a happy ending. That's very true.

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I mean, the fact that they do have a lot of international pressure to change their system.

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But despite many reforms that they claim to be putting in place, nothing much is being changed.

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And that's just a testament to the fact that they still very much need the system to survive because their

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population is just too small and not willing to do many of the jobs that the migrant workers are doing.

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I think essentially the UAE as a very, very luxury welfare state has set itself up for really unsustainable future path.

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So in the sense that there is a strong sense of country loyalty because of how well the country chooses citizens, which is great for the citizens.

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They get to enjoy tax free income, free, high quality healthcare subsidies to free higher education.

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Emirati has got nineteen thousand dollars when they marry in Emirati women. So there's lots of benefits here, but it's just entirely unsustainable,

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especially considering how much the Emirati community actually spends in the UAE.

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So the revenue production is greater amongst non nationals, whereas nationals don't actually spend that much.

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And so it's almost like the UAE is rewarding its citizens purely for.

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Their ethnic background, as opposed to incentivising them to create revenue.

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And the way they try trying to find a way around that is by investing in a permanent residency scheme which gives permanent residency to investors,

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researchers, entrepreneurs and outstanding students. Because the UAE is running out of oil and now has to look for alternative ways to make money.

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Construction is the most lucrative sector at the moment.

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And so what they've done is they've changed the legislation to allow non nationals to own land.

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Meaning the construction sector retains its lucrative nature, but also meaning that no nationals are able to find greater stability in the country.

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And I think that's the main source of anxiety for the community.

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Is it now these non nationals have superseded the need to rely on sponsors and on caffeine's to act as their way into the community.

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They actually have their own right to residency and they have their own ability to establish stability and their own lives in the country.

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And I think that's where the anxiety. So it kick started.

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Not necessarily the the discrepancy in numbers, like you said, Heizer.

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Not only did they get their their nationals youth to a standard of life and a standard of treatment that is very high and very hard to sustain,

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but they also provide that to high income expatriate workers as well.

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And now with their their lack of attractiveness due to the fact that now there is some income tax

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that's imposed and the fact that people are more more aware of the downsides of the kafala system,

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even as a high income expatriate worker, they are offering those kinds of guarantees, such as like being able to get property like casual mention.

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Yeah. And I also think they're very aware of how unsustainable this reality is.

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So Unworked Gurche said to the Baker Institute in June,

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they need to assess the sustainability of the kafala system and of their approach to migrant workers as a whole.

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And the academics call it living predicts that there'll be an expat exodus once travel restrictions

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or ease in the Gulf because of how unsustainable basically their society made copies.

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Would that then be an exodus of workers like the low skilled labourers to high skilled labourers, do you think?

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I think it would primarily be an exodus of the highest skilled labourers, but also the lower skilled labourers,

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because they were essentially abandoned both by their own governments and by the Gulf governments.

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So I think there were a few examples of India sending Navy ships to Dubai to collect their citizens in various pandemic.

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No direct relief was offered to migrants despite financial support being received by citizens.

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Me and I just think it's not sustainable to maintain the sort of two tier social system.

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And I think people are very aware of that. But that sustainability does go two ways, because for a number of these countries in Southeast Asia,

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the remittances which they receive from their citizens, which work in the Gulf, are incredibly important.

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The most glaring example is Nepal, where something like 20 percent of their GDP is based on remittances because of workers they have in the Gulf.

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But even for countries like India, it's still a very substantial amount of their gross national product.

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So it's also, I guess, in their best interest to keep the system alive as long as possible.

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And also, these GCSE countries will pay amounts of power in descending countries and have huge investments in these sending countries,

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such as the investment schemes in Pakistan and in India, for example, when Pakistan criticised the Saudis lack of support for the Kashmiris.

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I mean, I know this is not related to the palace system.

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It just comes to show that Pakistan criticised the Saudis for their lack of support for their fellow Muslim Kashmiris in that crisis.

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Saudi Arabia threatened to withdraw their funds and then Pakistan completely

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cancelled and took back any comments that they had made towards Saudi Arabia.

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But that's not to say that other countries haven't attempted to oppose the Gulf countries for their treatment of migrant workers,

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namely, the Philippines do tend to enacted a temporary ban on sending Filipino workers to Kuwait.

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But this isn't the first time the governments have been angry and have expressed their rage in a very practical manner.

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At the Gulf Arab states for their treatment of migrant workers,

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there's also been a number of cases where the European Union or other countries around the world have

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put a little pressure on both ATCC countries and Lebanon to stop working on their kafala system.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I mean, especially with the covered and what that brought in terms of mistreatment of migrant workers and how that was brought to the forefront.

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You have lots of actors that are opposed and outspoken against palace system such as the European Union within the European Parliament.

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You have subcommittees on human rights or delegations for relations with the Arab Peninsula on the dismantling of the kafala system.

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Lots of international organisations, such as the International Labour Association, the International Trade Union Confederation,

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International Organisation of Employers, who all put pressure on countries that apply the kafala system,

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especially when it comes to these these countries organising international events like

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the World Cup that's being organised in Qatar or American or Western universities,

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having campuses in these countries or museums. That's when these outside actors are paying more attention to what's happening in those countries.

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Have there been any indications of them being successful because the way Carter treats his American workers is no secret?

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And now there's some change to a opposing improving the situation. But even then, it's full of holes.

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It is true. I mean, because of that international pressure, there has been some some reforms,

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but they have been limited reforms in India and no real change has been brought.

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These reforms have happened in maybe nearly all the GCSE countries in the past couple of years.

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So like you said, Qatar in 2015 that had implemented a wage protection system, basically a wage monitoring system to down 17.

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They had a labour dispute resolution committee put in place an insurance fund for workers.

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And then in 2020, they basically signed this law, which in effect, the smattered the kafala system,

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because it removed the requirement for migrant workers to pay their employees permission to freely switch employers,

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remove the requirement for workers to obtain permission from the employer to leave the country,

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and basically adopt a non-discriminatory minimum wage for migrant workers and ensures that they have a day off every week and other things like this.

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But despite these changes, is important to remember that there is extremely slow implementation times for these

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laws or bills that are passed that can take years for them to be implemented.

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So there's a lack of resources for these programmes from the government itself

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because it doesn't really care and doesn't really want to change the system both.

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So, for example, if workers are given the opportunity to complain,

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they still won't necessarily complain if they are faced with issues because it takes a long time.

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It takes resources which they do not have, and they also scared of retaliation.

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Also, we have to remember that there's gaps in the oversight capacity.

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How are you able to have labour inspections within someone's house?

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That's extremely difficult to put in place. And then in the end, employers still get massive amounts of control over the migrant workers.

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So despite these changes in the end in Qatar, for example, even despite these changes,

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around 60 employers and companies were still identified as abusing workers.

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I just wanted to add something. So before we go on to the next question, and the first is,

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I should say that enforcement is probably the biggest question on problem related to this, because they can't implement those rules.

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But if there's no political desire to actually go through with them, it will have very little impact.

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And even the new CASA rules, which will introduce at the end of August 2020,

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they promise a thousand cuts are a real monthly minimum wage, plus another additional up to 800 real's for food and accommodation.

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But even with all of that, these people are only still earn like two or three British pounds an hour, which is a pittance.

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I think it's also important to note that fundamentally a lot of the GCSE operates on

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employer friendly legislation and so they prioritise the employer in legal situations.

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And I think for the kafala system to entirely be done away with and to 100 percent improve the working conditions of employees,

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speed aid to domestic migrant workers or construction workers or even white collar workers.

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The entire legal system requires an overhaul and requires a transition into a more employee friendly legislation.

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So, for example, there are some cases where there's an absence of minimum salary for expats.

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Employees can sort of unilaterally temp terminate the contract, which is quite interesting because that doesn't exist for nationals.

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Nationals, do you have a minimum salary? It's really hard to terminate the contracts of the Nationals.

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In some cases, trade unions are also banned. It's not just the kafala system that is glaringly flawed is actually a lot of the Gulf

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slave blew a lot of the cost Labour legislation that stands in the way of progression,

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that stands in the way of employees being able to gain some sort of equal standing in the community or in the employer's eyes.

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This might be a very difficult question,

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but do you think there's any room for improvement there or any realistic hope for improvement in those situations, especially in the each?

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There's too much reliance on these migration and labour systems to manage the demographic imbalance.

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I think what ensures that foreign workers don't gain political or community strength and influence is the relationship of sponsorship to nationals.

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And I think by ensuring the economic presence of nationals and by tying the migration status of nationals to nationals,

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it ensures that even the world of work revolves around nationals.

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Even world revolves around their relation to the Gulf state.

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The Gulf ethnocracy.

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So I think it's too much of a risk for the Gulf to get rid of the catalysis and also get rid of any sort of similar iterations of this Catana system,

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because it would require a massive admission of vulnerability and a massive sort of transition in.

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Vulnerability. And I don't think that is beneficial to the Gulf in any way.

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People who will accept anything. Yeah.

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And due to the fact that it's so difficult to change things within these countries, some NGOs like the Freedom Fund,

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for example, are helping more local NGOs on the ground in sending countries like Ethiopia.

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And these NGOs are basically providing support and training to individuals that are planning to go work abroad by giving them

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information and educating them about what to expect and how to react if they are faced with difficult situations of abuse,

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whether that's physical or whether that's wage abuse,

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and teach them more about what options they have despite them being very limited if they do want to get out or improve their situation.

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I think it's also really important to remember that it's not only a lack of awareness of the legal frameworks that are in place in the host countries,

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but it's also a massive language barrier. In the case of most migrant workers, they don't speak Arabic.

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That's a massive barrier to his Arabic is the language of the bureaucracy or the bureaucratic language.

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And so incapability. Speaking Arabic immediately prevents you from being able to access appropriate legal measures.

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And also, legal systems are very, very naturally inclined to prefer and prioritise their own nationals in almost every situation.

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At times it is actually futile to go and look for support from the legal frameworks are in

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place because they just do not work in the favour of the non UAE or non Gulf nationals.

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Absolutely.

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On top of that, as they don't actually have any substantial political rights, it's illegal for them basically to unionise and to get together.

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And even if they once they get together, there's so many cultural differences amongst the migrant population of different languages,

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religions, nationalities that is extremely difficult for them to organise together.

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And they basically find itself individually faced against the state and that legal system, which therefore becomes impossible.

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And even if they do complain a lot of the time, they deported before they even have the time to finish the legal proceedings.

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I think comprehending the state of migration in the UAE requires a comprehension of

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how the system works in place to ensure the perpetual isolation of each community.

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The Gulf profits or the GCSE profits and benefits from the acculturation of these communities by ensuring that they

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assimilate into their own community and they're not allowed to participate and continue to practise their own cultural means.

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They ensure that they are isolated in more ways than one and isolated from other potential sources of support.

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Like you were saying, Hajer, they're working construction, for example. They're confined to camps.

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And that's that situation has been exacerbated by the whole cohabits situation in Kuwait.

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They imposed a lockdown on two major Labour districts and they basically barricaded the area with barbed wire and just left them there

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to die because amongst them there was no any social distancing whatsoever and they were living in unliveable conditions before.

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And I think that hits the nail on the head. And the big problem is that the migrant labourers have to resist against the whole economic,

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political and the social interests of the state, which hasn't had total control over them.

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And that gives them very little recourse to do basically anything, though I would like to mention,

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even if they're basically faced with the whole system against them and they're made to fight it individually,

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there has been cases of strikes and protests in Kuwait, for example.

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There was there. They stormed into the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour and there was even riots, deportation.

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It's not like the migrant workers are basically standing idle as well.

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They have tried to fight back and usually nothing happens from that. And actually, it goes against them.

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But there are cases of them trying to fight back, sort of minimise my fear.

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I couldn't find a good. Another thing I wanted to raise is the importance of major events to shine light on the Catholic system,

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because especially thanks to Kronosaurus, I have been some quite well known moments of the situation of migrant labourers in Lebanon.

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And I gives the impression that major events, so big moments are very important progression of migrant labour rights in the Middle East.

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Absolutely, Pyotr. When it's international event that's being organised in these countries or big Western companies that are working

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in these countries or videos or incidents of migrant workers being abused and then spread around the world.

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That's the only time when it seemed that GCSE countries or countries that have the

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Catholic system actually act at least seem like they're going to do something about it.

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And actually, if you look at the dates of laws or bills that they pass in the aim of basically improving the system for migrant workers,

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you can see that the dates usually match up to events that happened at the same time.

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And like you said, with the World Cup in of that's being organised, that's when all these international organisations and the European Union started

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looking into how workers were being treated when building the stadiums,

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building the hotels. And that's when Qatar felt the pressure to finally make some changes.

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And through the review, to think that this has a lot to do with how these countries want to brand themselves,

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because a big part of their growth the last 10 or 15 years has been a desire to brand themselves as very modern,

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very hip, very appealing places in order to appeal as many foreign workers, especially from the West, as possible.

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And with the war in Yemen, which will eventually discussing this podcast and the way to treat Labour,

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lost its clashes very strongly with how they want to be portrayed to the West.

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Do you guys think the impact of those very major PR disasters are the primary reasons they will make an improvement?

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Yeah, absolutely. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Proof of that is the fact that they actually make changes when there's a scandal.

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And I just don't think that there's any longevity.

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Or any authenticity in the will. When I say that they're there, they're implementing these changes.

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I don't actually mean that there there's real change behind them.

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It is often the case, a PR stunt when there is these international events or when there is a scandal,

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these countries act upon it and we'll pass a bill or a law that stipulates that, you know, things are going to change for migrant workers.

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Are we going to treat them better? But like we said earlier in this podcast, real change doesn't actually happen.

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Implemented. Implementation doesn't happen. There's not enough resources to make it happen because there's no will to make it happen.

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And because these countries are completely dependent on the system and the

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development in these countries or is intrinsically connected to the kafala system,

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and without the kafala system, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE wouldn't be where they are today to have anything.

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Those are. I absolutely agree. Well, excellent.

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Let's move on to oh, just a quick addition. It's quite interesting that you mentioned the Qatar scandal, I think was also increased.

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The presence or the awareness of human rights abuses and scandals in the GCSE

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is definitely the presence of British and American campuses in the region.

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So I remember last year in twenty nineteen, like a like a university paper,

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published a request for the accountability of Cornell and their involvement and engagement with migrant workers and how they sort of employ these

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communities and almost certainly don't pay them well and aren't helping themselves to the standards that they are being held in to in America.

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Can these institutions actually exist in this region without depending almost entirely on migrant labour being in the construction aspect,

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be it and the maintenance aspect there, even in a domestic sense? Do they have made in their houses due to have drivers?

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There's so much I think to consider and there's so much that actually British and American and European nationals are complicit in.

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So I think it's very optimistic or naive to say that this is exclusively a GCSE problem.

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A lot of the non nationals who come from Britain, who come from America, who come from Europe, thrive in that system,

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make a lot of money, enjoy the life of luxury and servitude that they finally have access to.

386
00:39:11,490 --> 00:39:21,200
And I think in reality, they're very unwilling to pass up on an opportunity of extremely discounted labour in every sense of the word.

387
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:32,870
Should then one way to improve the situation of migrant labourers in the Gulf and in Lebanon then be to raise awareness in Europe about the situation,

388
00:39:32,870 --> 00:39:37,490
because at the moment it feels very much like a fringe part of advocacy.

389
00:39:37,490 --> 00:39:45,620
Still, I think it's very presumptuous to believe that the way these issues will be resolved is through European pressure.

390
00:39:45,620 --> 00:39:51,230
I think the reality is the pressure needs to come from within the countries themselves, as in the case of Lebanon,

391
00:39:51,230 --> 00:39:58,460
post economic collapse, post explosion, host government designation, most everything that's happened in this past year.

392
00:39:58,460 --> 00:40:04,730
The Lebanese community themselves are aware of how unsustainable and how unethical and how unkind the kafala system is.

393
00:40:04,730 --> 00:40:10,340
And it's them who are pushing for the change and it's them who are succeeding in ensuring

394
00:40:10,340 --> 00:40:15,640
that these communities get the support and the financial aid that they deserve.

395
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,000
And I completely agree that if these Western institutions,

396
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:29,690
organisations and companies are complicit in in this system and its survival, how can we expect them to actually fight against it?

397
00:40:29,690 --> 00:40:34,910
At the same time, I find that quite hypocritical. And they do fight against it, at least officially, you know,

398
00:40:34,910 --> 00:40:42,890
with the International Labour Organisation putting pressure on FIFA to make sure that the stadiums and father are not built by forced labour.

399
00:40:42,890 --> 00:40:50,900
But then again, these are usually just recommendations. The government of Qatar really complies with them as much as it wants.

400
00:40:50,900 --> 00:40:53,930
Companies can act. Well, they can say they're doing their own things,

401
00:40:53,930 --> 00:40:58,650
but there's very little genuine motivation for them to actually put their money where their mouth is.

402
00:40:58,650 --> 00:41:09,580
You know, we can criticise all we want, but we're also perpetrators of of unfair migration systems that are major beneficiaries of it as well.

403
00:41:09,580 --> 00:41:14,660
The final question I wanted to ask was the impact of Carone of ours, because for many people,

404
00:41:14,660 --> 00:41:21,800
one of the first things they heard about the Catholic system was when there were some viral moments on Twitter when a BBC journalist

405
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:27,980
recorded African migrants had been left at the consulate and had no way to go home because their passports had been removed.

406
00:41:27,980 --> 00:41:34,640
And equally so, coronavirus has had much harder camps in which the labourers find themselves throughout the Gulf.

407
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:41,570
And because of that, Cronos has underlined the difficulties within the societies and also with the related oil price crash.

408
00:41:41,570 --> 00:41:46,440
Thanks to Cronos has shown how unsustainable the whole situation is.

409
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:51,350
And because of that, I wanted to ask you guys as perspective of what impact you think coronaviruses had,

410
00:41:51,350 --> 00:41:56,460
and especially if it's going to have a lasting impact and if that impact is going to be for the better.

411
00:41:56,460 --> 00:42:02,270
I think given the loss of income for so many communities during this communitarians period,

412
00:42:02,270 --> 00:42:09,780
it's almost inevitable that the glaring fallacies of the kafala system will be made even more obvious

413
00:42:09,780 --> 00:42:15,710
in that these migrant worker communities will face this burden of not being able to send home money.

414
00:42:15,710 --> 00:42:19,400
Their remittances be dramatically decreased.

415
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:27,440
Maybe you don't see the impact as immediately in the domestic sector because the family still resides with the domestic worker.

416
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:34,190
But I think you definitely do see it in the construction sector because construction dries up.

417
00:42:34,190 --> 00:42:40,760
What dries up, pay dries up. There's kind of no other alternative but potentially returning home, something which is very,

418
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:49,760
very difficult to do given the costs of returning home and how difficult it was to renew visas during that period.

419
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:56,030
And therefore. And so I'd say even the ones are not allowed to return home for whatever reasons.

420
00:42:56,030 --> 00:43:04,520
They are also in a very unfortunate limbo situation was reports of a number of people who were stuck in the buildings, in the labour camps.

421
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,430
And while they wouldn't be deported right away, they would also not be paid.

422
00:43:07,430 --> 00:43:12,230
Which is problematic for them, but even more so for the family who relies on their remittances.

423
00:43:12,230 --> 00:43:17,210
Just to go back to your initial question about is this going to have an impact for the better?

424
00:43:17,210 --> 00:43:22,610
I'm viewing corvids and the issues that that's bringing to the migrant population.

425
00:43:22,610 --> 00:43:27,710
Those countries is just another crisis that's going to be viewed by the rest of the world.

426
00:43:27,710 --> 00:43:31,610
And then the rest of world is going to put pressure on these countries to do something about it.

427
00:43:31,610 --> 00:43:37,580
And that's why we've seen some some some new laws or promises in Lebanon and Qatar or

428
00:43:37,580 --> 00:43:42,090
Kuwait about how they're going to start treating them better during these Cobey time.

429
00:43:42,090 --> 00:43:45,140
But then again, it is coming back to the original problem.

430
00:43:45,140 --> 00:43:51,680
Are these just empty words or is actual change going to be brought and how is that going to be implemented?

431
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,650
Once again, I also think it's too little, too late.

432
00:43:54,650 --> 00:44:04,460
There's sort of two tier system that exists in GCSE has cemented itself over 40, 50, 60 years of the fairly system being in place.

433
00:44:04,460 --> 00:44:08,840
I don't think you can actually circumvent the lasting impacts of the system,

434
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:14,600
be that the racism that is engendered by that colorism is encouraged in the communities.

435
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:20,360
I just think that the impact of having the system so.

436
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:24,860
Central to the structure of the community and to the structure of the migration

437
00:44:24,860 --> 00:44:30,170
policy means that there are there's a lot more to the GCT needs to deal with.

438
00:44:30,170 --> 00:44:35,270
It's not just something that can be immediately reversed and process in the space of a few years.

439
00:44:35,270 --> 00:44:39,050
And I think that's exactly right. And I think that's also a good point.

440
00:44:39,050 --> 00:44:45,090
And simply saying that it's such a fundamental system and how these countries economies work and their populations

441
00:44:45,090 --> 00:44:51,170
are in many cases so small that they cannot function economically without a large number of foreign workers,

442
00:44:51,170 --> 00:44:56,870
both high skilled ones and those cold ones. The big problem, which is going to remain in the region, is how to solve it.

443
00:44:56,870 --> 00:45:02,480
And a big problem for people interested in the region like us is how we can raise

444
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,350
awareness and make those situation a bit more equitable and a bit less exploitable.

445
00:45:06,350 --> 00:45:12,410
Because at the moment it is as we said in the beginning, it is in effect human trafficking and modern slavery.

446
00:45:12,410 --> 00:45:20,970
And that's a very unfortunate situation to be in in 2020. Thank you for listening to the second episode of Parliament Middle East.

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00:45:20,970 --> 00:45:27,130
Join us next time when we're joined by three amazing guests to discuss female entrepreneurship in the middle.

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Alan Managua's, a student run initiative from the Middle East Centre at the University of Oxford.

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The opinions expressed within the podcast are not in any way represent the official opinions.

450
00:45:36,410 --> 00:45:40,970
University of Oxford or the Middle East centre is edited and hosted by myself.

451
00:45:40,970 --> 00:45:47,030
Tilt US Focus is invaluable and inspiring support from Felix Walker.

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00:45:47,030 --> 00:45:51,080
Michael Memory. Max Randall.

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Frederico Emman Johnson.