Hello and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Episode two Almanac, the Oxford Middle East podcast.
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,
its role in an effect on societies, the impact of corollaries or this future metrically.
Live mainly from Asia, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Kafala system is modern day slavery. There's no two ways about it.
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.
I think they three, they can treat us equally.
Human Rights Watch has criticised this system of sponsorship in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which ties migrant workers to local sponsors.
Of course, we have the capital. But without that, many projects would never have seen the light of day.
We are hoping that other countries will also follow suit and slowly abolish kefala because it is not in line with international standards.
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.
So, Felix, would you stop giving a definition, please? Sure.
So basically, the kafala system is a form of legal migration structure that exists in Gulf countries and in Lebanon and in Jordan.
And it basically operates through a sponsor called Caffeine.
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.
The kefala system basically works by outsourcing the management and the control over the migrant labour from the state to the citizen himself,
who is the employer and who wields high amounts of control over the person working for him.
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,
there is diversity within the system itself as to the type of restrictions and their application.
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,
whilst in Arab states such as Lebanon and Jordan,
there exists a differentiation in the control exercised over migrant workers and who works under this system.
So in Lebanon, kefala regulates low skilled workers coming primarily from Asia and Africa, but not those coming from Syria and Egypt, for example.
And in Jordan, the Kefalas system is only relevant to migrant workers recruited by nationals and not those working in qualified industrial zones.
Harjo Do you want to say something about history? So there are quite a few theories as to why the kafala system came from.
I think the most popular is I started in the 1950s two to rush.
It does hold some truth to it. I think the more convincing theory is that the sponsorship system,
kafala system is a product of the British colonial era and Bahrain was a particularly fruitful pearling industry.
And during the summer high season, migrants who were primarily colonised peoples of the British Empire's Indians would come
to Bahrain and work on the ships and contribute to the pending industry and the beef.
Originally, this was incredibly unregulated and information trends industry was very unclear.
But then there began the process of formalisation which occurred simultaneously to the formalisation of these countries their borders,
their legal institutions and their travel structures,
which meant that in the thirties, for someone to become a diver on these ships,
they require to have an entry visa, an exit visa, no objection certificate when they wanted to leave the country.
All aspects of the kafala system that we see today.
And I think what really defined this fledgling kafala system and allowed it to transition from fledging to
find a system to this full blown kafala system that we have today was the 1945 oil discovery in Kuwait.
Originally, Kuwaitis attempted to circumvent British requirements by abolishing visa requirements for the Arabs.
But it became immediately obvious that these Arabs imported along with their families,
progressive political ideas that pose challenges to ruling families in the Gulf.
So ideas such as Panopto Barisan, Nasserism, Communism and socialism, and I think it was during this period 1960s,
especially when this idea of almost a two tier system came into play,
quite began to introduce greater benefits to its citizenry,
and citizenship became something only given to those with one or two parents, meaning only Kuwaiti citizens could sponsor workers.
And so they had direct control over the migrant worker sector and industry.
And I think this is what one could say was the beginning of the ethnocracy in the
GCSE and truly defined the way that golf would approach migration for the weakest.
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.
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.
And the second one is, as you mentioned, Hodgett, that it creates a very large body of a political workers.
During the 60s, 70s, the Gulf did have a large number of Arab workers,
but it would also bring their families for when more migrants came from Southeast Asia.
They, as you said, would often be single men not bringing their families and not having any interest
in spreading to the Arab nationalist ideology or anything else in the region,
making them the perfect work in the Gulf States.
You know, the same applies today with with workers from Europe and America as well.
They are very little interest in regional politics and are therefore very stable people to have within the country.
In reference to South Asian migrants, it's actually really important to understand this migration isn't a new phenomena.
And migration from South Asia to the Persian Gulf to the Iranian peninsula has been
occurring and has been documented as early as in 1822 and definitely earlier.
And I think for a lot of people, it's assumed that this is a very new development.
But actually it's been going on for a really long time. These communities have a very longstanding relationship with communities in the Gulf.
That brings us into another question, which is why these people from South Asia and Southeast Asia end up travelling to the coast.
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
salary that they receive has a greater purchasing power in their respective countries.
And as often is the case with a lot of these construction workers, accommodation is provided for them.
And so they're able to send home the majority of their salaries as remittances.
Unlike, for example, Bangladesh receives over 50 billion dollars a year in remittances.
And so this makes up a very important part of the country's economy.
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,
they there will be work for them because of how much the Gulf now relies on construction work to preserve its economic revenue.
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
the Middle East is of not quite as easy or straightforward as for portrayed,
because there is also a large problem with, for example, debt bondage or false advertising,
which has very serious consequences for their lives once they come into the Middle East.
There's a lot of agencies that falsely advertise positions in the UAE, in the GCT in general.
And then when the workers arrive in the country, they actually their passports are confiscated and then they're forced into labour.
There's a lot more tedious and a lot more strenuous than was previously advertised.
And I think that's really common and is akin to essentially human trafficking, a modern slave labour.
And then once they arrive, there is various forms of wage abuses, such as being underpaid or not even being paid,
unfair business practises such as the paid when paid clause,
which basically allows subcontractors that have not been paid to delay payments to the workers.
They also face some of the employers, withhold the workers A.T.M. cards.
Also, like you mentioned jotter previously there,
they're victims of deceptive recruitment practises in both the sending and receiving countries with illegal visa traders.
And it does become a form of human trafficking. In Qatar, for example,
workers have to pay from seven hundred dollars to two thousand six hundred dollars to
secure jobs to be able to go to Qatar as they face wage abuses upon their rivals,
being able to first pay that back and then send remittances home is extremely difficult.
And very often they're not even able to actually come out of the country having earned any money yet.
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,
you know, roughly how much they earn a week or a month when they're there.
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,
is also higher income professional expatriate workers that are also affected.
And also on top of that, due to wage abuses, it's difficult to know exactly what they're being paid and the oversight,
you know, international institutions or government have on being able to know what workers are being paid is also very limited,
especially for domestic workers,
because being able to regulate what's happening inside the home of an employer who wields their high levels of power is extremely difficult.
According to Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain,
the average monthly salary for a migrant domestic worker is between 150 to 200 dollars.
And as is often the case, deductions may be made for accommodation for food.
So they don't always receive the total sum set in the very best case scenario.
They have to work for up to 10 months to pay off the debt they have incurred to the employer.
And that's. And finally start earning money. That's not ideal when it comes to, for example, living conditions.
It's also a very well publicised problem that the migrants from Southeast Asia,
despite building all the buildings in which rich individuals in the Gulf live,
they don't get to live in them themselves and often find themselves in very crammed labour camps.
And this is obviously a disaster for Coronado's. But we'll get back to that later in the episode.
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.
So 96 percent of Emirati families are believed to have a domestic worker in their household.
And because of this development,
it's become very common for homes and houses to have servants quarters where the domestic workers can live apart from the family.
But a major problem within this dynamic is that the worker is always accessible, that always accessible to the family,
meaning that the family can easily over what then can easily demand of them a greater
time commitment and a greater energy commitment than is acceptable for these workers.
And also one of the issues that workers face as domestic workers, they weren't even allowed to leave the house without permission.
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,
some ministers were saying that they shouldn't be allowed out of the house because that
could increase the chances of them getting into relationships and then coming back pregnant.
That would cause an issue for the employer because therefore they would have to change migrant worker.
I think it's definitely very easy to underestimate the role of the domestic worker in the domestic environment that according to recent studies,
domestic workers in the Emirates especially perform over 80 percent of parental responsibilities,
meaning that their role in the family is essential and they have been absorbed into the nuclear unit or into the Gulf nuclear unit.
And as the Gulf population begins to age,
these domestic workers become even more useful and even more essential as carers and as caregivers to these older communities.
Typically, countries that apply the kafala system are treated as a block with common problems and policies.
But however, destination countries have diversity in the Kovalchik system.
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.
And in Arab states such as Lebanon, Jordan, there exist differentiation in the control exercised over migrant workers.
So, for example, in Lebanon, the kefala regulates low skilled workers coming primarily from Asia and Africa,
but not those coming from Syria or other Arab countries, although it depends in what areas are working in in the country.
Also, like, for example, when Jordan, the kafala system,
is only relevant to migrant workers recruited by nationals and not those working in qualified industrial zones.
I think the application of the kafala system to all nationals in the GCSE really
reinforces the privileges that citizenship in the GCSE affords to its communities.
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,
is to ensure that this two tier or this pyramid hierarchy remains intact and
it isn't threatened by this massive influx of migrant workers at any point.
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.
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.
And the consequence of this is also that the whole city or the whole country in some
cases gets aimed at catering to foreign consumers than those in other countries in Qatar.
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.
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,
who work and who consume their goods, who never actually put their roots in those countries, because, as has been discussed earlier,
it's almost impossible to get a citizenship in these countries. And in addition to that, you have the environmental consequence of this.
And Qatar is one of the countries which the most exposed to climate change in the world.
But nothing in their policies or in their behaviour gives an indication that it is a primary
threat to them at the moment because the whole economy is based on short termism and consumption.
And that is going to turn out to be a very major problem for them in the future.
I think the anxiety about this of impending demographic timebomb is very, very tangible in quite a few of these countries,
especially in the GCSE, so that they have been quite a few state led drivers.
To increase the number of their citizens employed in public and private sectors.
And it's called funny names, cauterisation, Emirati ization and Saudization and also Omani ization.
But essentially,
they're creating a legal compulsion for companies and NGOs to hire UAE nationals as a priority rather than equally evaluating all applications.
And I think that's particularly interesting because currently the public sector, for example, in Saudi and in the UAE is dominated by nationals.
But the reality is there's not enough jobs for the number of nationals that are out there.
So now the governments have turned to apply pressure to private companies and ensure that
the private sector props up the national economy as much as the public sector does.
There are two flip sites that are the first one is for people in Emirates and Qatar.
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.
So for them, it is still a sector within which they can express their own culture.
The other problem with the colourisation or Saudization or monetisation policies is that many international companies see the requirements of having
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.
I think that's really poignant because these countries are very aware of how much their private sectors are dominated by foreign nationals.
So, for example, in 2008, Saudi's attempt to reduce the number of work visas to restrict competition and UAE labour
law states that employment is the right of UAE nationals but is not the right of UAE.
Non nationals and employees are under G.T. to consider you a nationals before employing foreign nationals.
On the flip side, termination of employment of UAE nationals is much, much more difficult.
You aren't allowed to terminate EU nationals in order to hire non-union national.
And if that is found to be the case, you can be fined over 20000 Emirati terms.
Is there Heida was a xenophobia there? Well, it's growing.
And is it towards the low skilled or the higher skilled? Probably towards the higher skilled. I think it goes both ways.
I think because the lower skilled workers are by far the more numerous in those countries,
because I know, for example, in the UAE, Indians are the largest ethnic group in the country.
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.
But as you say, there's also definitely xenophobia towards the higher skilled migrant labourers
because they are the ones with whom the citizens have to compete for jobs.
And because of that, they are often very unhappy about the situation which are and because they feel it's their national right.
As I mentioned, to have a job, an application is also to have a most prestigious, well regarded job.
But often companies are more interested in having the higher performing nationals from Western countries to do those jobs.
There are some good examples of people within the JCC becoming fairly xenophobic.
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.
Even now, the term used for a large number of migrants is Bengali.
Like it doesn't matter if you're from the country, which isn't India, you're still referred to as a Bengali.
So I think very many of the citizens in those countries are quite sick of the situation in which they find themselves.
On the other hand, the whole economic system is based on a situation where they are incredibly reliant on foreign labourers.
I don't see that having a happy ending. That's very true.
I mean, the fact that they do have a lot of international pressure to change their system.
But despite many reforms that they claim to be putting in place, nothing much is being changed.
And that's just a testament to the fact that they still very much need the system to survive because their
population is just too small and not willing to do many of the jobs that the migrant workers are doing.
I think essentially the UAE as a very, very luxury welfare state has set itself up for really unsustainable future path.
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.
They get to enjoy tax free income, free, high quality healthcare subsidies to free higher education.
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,
especially considering how much the Emirati community actually spends in the UAE.
So the revenue production is greater amongst non nationals, whereas nationals don't actually spend that much.
And so it's almost like the UAE is rewarding its citizens purely for.
Their ethnic background, as opposed to incentivising them to create revenue.
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,
researchers, entrepreneurs and outstanding students. Because the UAE is running out of oil and now has to look for alternative ways to make money.
Construction is the most lucrative sector at the moment.
And so what they've done is they've changed the legislation to allow non nationals to own land.
Meaning the construction sector retains its lucrative nature, but also meaning that no nationals are able to find greater stability in the country.
And I think that's the main source of anxiety for the community.
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.
They actually have their own right to residency and they have their own ability to establish stability and their own lives in the country.
And I think that's where the anxiety. So it kick started.
Not necessarily the the discrepancy in numbers, like you said, Heizer.
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,
but they also provide that to high income expatriate workers as well.
And now with their their lack of attractiveness due to the fact that now there is some income tax
that's imposed and the fact that people are more more aware of the downsides of the kafala system,
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.
Yeah. And I also think they're very aware of how unsustainable this reality is.
So Unworked Gurche said to the Baker Institute in June,
they need to assess the sustainability of the kafala system and of their approach to migrant workers as a whole.
And the academics call it living predicts that there'll be an expat exodus once travel restrictions
or ease in the Gulf because of how unsustainable basically their society made copies.
Would that then be an exodus of workers like the low skilled labourers to high skilled labourers, do you think?
I think it would primarily be an exodus of the highest skilled labourers, but also the lower skilled labourers,
because they were essentially abandoned both by their own governments and by the Gulf governments.
So I think there were a few examples of India sending Navy ships to Dubai to collect their citizens in various pandemic.
No direct relief was offered to migrants despite financial support being received by citizens.
Me and I just think it's not sustainable to maintain the sort of two tier social system.
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,
the remittances which they receive from their citizens, which work in the Gulf, are incredibly important.
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.
But even for countries like India, it's still a very substantial amount of their gross national product.
So it's also, I guess, in their best interest to keep the system alive as long as possible.
And also, these GCSE countries will pay amounts of power in descending countries and have huge investments in these sending countries,
such as the investment schemes in Pakistan and in India, for example, when Pakistan criticised the Saudis lack of support for the Kashmiris.
I mean, I know this is not related to the palace system.
It just comes to show that Pakistan criticised the Saudis for their lack of support for their fellow Muslim Kashmiris in that crisis.
Saudi Arabia threatened to withdraw their funds and then Pakistan completely
cancelled and took back any comments that they had made towards Saudi Arabia.
But that's not to say that other countries haven't attempted to oppose the Gulf countries for their treatment of migrant workers,
namely, the Philippines do tend to enacted a temporary ban on sending Filipino workers to Kuwait.
But this isn't the first time the governments have been angry and have expressed their rage in a very practical manner.
At the Gulf Arab states for their treatment of migrant workers,
there's also been a number of cases where the European Union or other countries around the world have
put a little pressure on both ATCC countries and Lebanon to stop working on their kafala system.
Yeah, absolutely.
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.
You have lots of actors that are opposed and outspoken against palace system such as the European Union within the European Parliament.
You have subcommittees on human rights or delegations for relations with the Arab Peninsula on the dismantling of the kafala system.
Lots of international organisations, such as the International Labour Association, the International Trade Union Confederation,
International Organisation of Employers, who all put pressure on countries that apply the kafala system,
especially when it comes to these these countries organising international events like
the World Cup that's being organised in Qatar or American or Western universities,
having campuses in these countries or museums. That's when these outside actors are paying more attention to what's happening in those countries.
Have there been any indications of them being successful because the way Carter treats his American workers is no secret?
And now there's some change to a opposing improving the situation. But even then, it's full of holes.
It is true. I mean, because of that international pressure, there has been some some reforms,
but they have been limited reforms in India and no real change has been brought.
These reforms have happened in maybe nearly all the GCSE countries in the past couple of years.
So like you said, Qatar in 2015 that had implemented a wage protection system, basically a wage monitoring system to down 17.
They had a labour dispute resolution committee put in place an insurance fund for workers.
And then in 2020, they basically signed this law, which in effect, the smattered the kafala system,
because it removed the requirement for migrant workers to pay their employees permission to freely switch employers,
remove the requirement for workers to obtain permission from the employer to leave the country,
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.
But despite these changes, is important to remember that there is extremely slow implementation times for these
laws or bills that are passed that can take years for them to be implemented.
So there's a lack of resources for these programmes from the government itself
because it doesn't really care and doesn't really want to change the system both.
So, for example, if workers are given the opportunity to complain,
they still won't necessarily complain if they are faced with issues because it takes a long time.
It takes resources which they do not have, and they also scared of retaliation.
Also, we have to remember that there's gaps in the oversight capacity.
How are you able to have labour inspections within someone's house?
That's extremely difficult to put in place. And then in the end, employers still get massive amounts of control over the migrant workers.
So despite these changes in the end in Qatar, for example, even despite these changes,
around 60 employers and companies were still identified as abusing workers.
I just wanted to add something. So before we go on to the next question, and the first is,
I should say that enforcement is probably the biggest question on problem related to this, because they can't implement those rules.
But if there's no political desire to actually go through with them, it will have very little impact.
And even the new CASA rules, which will introduce at the end of August 2020,
they promise a thousand cuts are a real monthly minimum wage, plus another additional up to 800 real's for food and accommodation.
But even with all of that, these people are only still earn like two or three British pounds an hour, which is a pittance.
I think it's also important to note that fundamentally a lot of the GCSE operates on
employer friendly legislation and so they prioritise the employer in legal situations.
And I think for the kafala system to entirely be done away with and to 100 percent improve the working conditions of employees,
speed aid to domestic migrant workers or construction workers or even white collar workers.
The entire legal system requires an overhaul and requires a transition into a more employee friendly legislation.
So, for example, there are some cases where there's an absence of minimum salary for expats.
Employees can sort of unilaterally temp terminate the contract, which is quite interesting because that doesn't exist for nationals.
Nationals, do you have a minimum salary? It's really hard to terminate the contracts of the Nationals.
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
slave blew a lot of the cost Labour legislation that stands in the way of progression,
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.
This might be a very difficult question,
but do you think there's any room for improvement there or any realistic hope for improvement in those situations, especially in the each?
There's too much reliance on these migration and labour systems to manage the demographic imbalance.
I think what ensures that foreign workers don't gain political or community strength and influence is the relationship of sponsorship to nationals.
And I think by ensuring the economic presence of nationals and by tying the migration status of nationals to nationals,
it ensures that even the world of work revolves around nationals.
Even world revolves around their relation to the Gulf state.
The Gulf ethnocracy.
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,
because it would require a massive admission of vulnerability and a massive sort of transition in.
Vulnerability. And I don't think that is beneficial to the Gulf in any way.
People who will accept anything. Yeah.
And due to the fact that it's so difficult to change things within these countries, some NGOs like the Freedom Fund,
for example, are helping more local NGOs on the ground in sending countries like Ethiopia.
And these NGOs are basically providing support and training to individuals that are planning to go work abroad by giving them
information and educating them about what to expect and how to react if they are faced with difficult situations of abuse,
whether that's physical or whether that's wage abuse,
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.
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,
but it's also a massive language barrier. In the case of most migrant workers, they don't speak Arabic.
That's a massive barrier to his Arabic is the language of the bureaucracy or the bureaucratic language.
And so incapability. Speaking Arabic immediately prevents you from being able to access appropriate legal measures.
And also, legal systems are very, very naturally inclined to prefer and prioritise their own nationals in almost every situation.
At times it is actually futile to go and look for support from the legal frameworks are in
place because they just do not work in the favour of the non UAE or non Gulf nationals.
Absolutely.
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.
And even if they once they get together, there's so many cultural differences amongst the migrant population of different languages,
religions, nationalities that is extremely difficult for them to organise together.
And they basically find itself individually faced against the state and that legal system, which therefore becomes impossible.
And even if they do complain a lot of the time, they deported before they even have the time to finish the legal proceedings.
I think comprehending the state of migration in the UAE requires a comprehension of
how the system works in place to ensure the perpetual isolation of each community.
The Gulf profits or the GCSE profits and benefits from the acculturation of these communities by ensuring that they
assimilate into their own community and they're not allowed to participate and continue to practise their own cultural means.
They ensure that they are isolated in more ways than one and isolated from other potential sources of support.
Like you were saying, Hajer, they're working construction, for example. They're confined to camps.
And that's that situation has been exacerbated by the whole cohabits situation in Kuwait.
They imposed a lockdown on two major Labour districts and they basically barricaded the area with barbed wire and just left them there
to die because amongst them there was no any social distancing whatsoever and they were living in unliveable conditions before.
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,
political and the social interests of the state, which hasn't had total control over them.
And that gives them very little recourse to do basically anything, though I would like to mention,
even if they're basically faced with the whole system against them and they're made to fight it individually,
there has been cases of strikes and protests in Kuwait, for example.
There was there. They stormed into the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour and there was even riots, deportation.
It's not like the migrant workers are basically standing idle as well.
They have tried to fight back and usually nothing happens from that. And actually, it goes against them.
But there are cases of them trying to fight back, sort of minimise my fear.
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,
because especially thanks to Kronosaurus, I have been some quite well known moments of the situation of migrant labourers in Lebanon.
And I gives the impression that major events, so big moments are very important progression of migrant labour rights in the Middle East.
Absolutely, Pyotr. When it's international event that's being organised in these countries or big Western companies that are working
in these countries or videos or incidents of migrant workers being abused and then spread around the world.
That's the only time when it seemed that GCSE countries or countries that have the
Catholic system actually act at least seem like they're going to do something about it.
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,
you can see that the dates usually match up to events that happened at the same time.
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
looking into how workers were being treated when building the stadiums,
building the hotels. And that's when Qatar felt the pressure to finally make some changes.
And through the review, to think that this has a lot to do with how these countries want to brand themselves,
because a big part of their growth the last 10 or 15 years has been a desire to brand themselves as very modern,
very hip, very appealing places in order to appeal as many foreign workers, especially from the West, as possible.
And with the war in Yemen, which will eventually discussing this podcast and the way to treat Labour,
lost its clashes very strongly with how they want to be portrayed to the West.
Do you guys think the impact of those very major PR disasters are the primary reasons they will make an improvement?
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.
And I just don't think that there's any longevity.
Or any authenticity in the will. When I say that they're there, they're implementing these changes.
I don't actually mean that there there's real change behind them.
It is often the case, a PR stunt when there is these international events or when there is a scandal,
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.
Are we going to treat them better? But like we said earlier in this podcast, real change doesn't actually happen.
Implemented. Implementation doesn't happen. There's not enough resources to make it happen because there's no will to make it happen.
And because these countries are completely dependent on the system and the
development in these countries or is intrinsically connected to the kafala system,
and without the kafala system, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE wouldn't be where they are today to have anything.
Those are. I absolutely agree. Well, excellent.
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.
The presence or the awareness of human rights abuses and scandals in the GCSE
is definitely the presence of British and American campuses in the region.
So I remember last year in twenty nineteen, like a like a university paper,
published a request for the accountability of Cornell and their involvement and engagement with migrant workers and how they sort of employ these
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.
Can these institutions actually exist in this region without depending almost entirely on migrant labour being in the construction aspect,
be it and the maintenance aspect there, even in a domestic sense? Do they have made in their houses due to have drivers?
There's so much I think to consider and there's so much that actually British and American and European nationals are complicit in.
So I think it's very optimistic or naive to say that this is exclusively a GCSE problem.
A lot of the non nationals who come from Britain, who come from America, who come from Europe, thrive in that system,
make a lot of money, enjoy the life of luxury and servitude that they finally have access to.
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.
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,
because at the moment it feels very much like a fringe part of advocacy.
Still, I think it's very presumptuous to believe that the way these issues will be resolved is through European pressure.
I think the reality is the pressure needs to come from within the countries themselves, as in the case of Lebanon,
post economic collapse, post explosion, host government designation, most everything that's happened in this past year.
The Lebanese community themselves are aware of how unsustainable and how unethical and how unkind the kafala system is.
And it's them who are pushing for the change and it's them who are succeeding in ensuring
that these communities get the support and the financial aid that they deserve.
And I completely agree that if these Western institutions,
organisations and companies are complicit in in this system and its survival, how can we expect them to actually fight against it?
At the same time, I find that quite hypocritical. And they do fight against it, at least officially, you know,
with the International Labour Organisation putting pressure on FIFA to make sure that the stadiums and father are not built by forced labour.
But then again, these are usually just recommendations. The government of Qatar really complies with them as much as it wants.
Companies can act. Well, they can say they're doing their own things,
but there's very little genuine motivation for them to actually put their money where their mouth is.
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.
The final question I wanted to ask was the impact of Carone of ours, because for many people,
one of the first things they heard about the Catholic system was when there were some viral moments on Twitter when a BBC journalist
recorded African migrants had been left at the consulate and had no way to go home because their passports had been removed.
And equally so, coronavirus has had much harder camps in which the labourers find themselves throughout the Gulf.
And because of that, Cronos has underlined the difficulties within the societies and also with the related oil price crash.
Thanks to Cronos has shown how unsustainable the whole situation is.
And because of that, I wanted to ask you guys as perspective of what impact you think coronaviruses had,
and especially if it's going to have a lasting impact and if that impact is going to be for the better.
I think given the loss of income for so many communities during this communitarians period,
it's almost inevitable that the glaring fallacies of the kafala system will be made even more obvious
in that these migrant worker communities will face this burden of not being able to send home money.
Their remittances be dramatically decreased.
Maybe you don't see the impact as immediately in the domestic sector because the family still resides with the domestic worker.
But I think you definitely do see it in the construction sector because construction dries up.
What dries up, pay dries up. There's kind of no other alternative but potentially returning home, something which is very,
very difficult to do given the costs of returning home and how difficult it was to renew visas during that period.
And therefore. And so I'd say even the ones are not allowed to return home for whatever reasons.
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.
And while they wouldn't be deported right away, they would also not be paid.
Which is problematic for them, but even more so for the family who relies on their remittances.
Just to go back to your initial question about is this going to have an impact for the better?
I'm viewing corvids and the issues that that's bringing to the migrant population.
Those countries is just another crisis that's going to be viewed by the rest of the world.
And then the rest of world is going to put pressure on these countries to do something about it.
And that's why we've seen some some some new laws or promises in Lebanon and Qatar or
Kuwait about how they're going to start treating them better during these Cobey time.
But then again, it is coming back to the original problem.
Are these just empty words or is actual change going to be brought and how is that going to be implemented?
Once again, I also think it's too little, too late.
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.
I don't think you can actually circumvent the lasting impacts of the system,
be that the racism that is engendered by that colorism is encouraged in the communities.
I just think that the impact of having the system so.
Central to the structure of the community and to the structure of the migration
policy means that there are there's a lot more to the GCT needs to deal with.
It's not just something that can be immediately reversed and process in the space of a few years.
And I think that's exactly right. And I think that's also a good point.
And simply saying that it's such a fundamental system and how these countries economies work and their populations
are in many cases so small that they cannot function economically without a large number of foreign workers,
both high skilled ones and those cold ones. The big problem, which is going to remain in the region, is how to solve it.
And a big problem for people interested in the region like us is how we can raise
awareness and make those situation a bit more equitable and a bit less exploitable.
Because at the moment it is as we said in the beginning, it is in effect human trafficking and modern slavery.
And that's a very unfortunate situation to be in in 2020. Thank you for listening to the second episode of Parliament Middle East.
Join us next time when we're joined by three amazing guests to discuss female entrepreneurship in the middle.
Alan Managua's, a student run initiative from the Middle East Centre at the University of Oxford.
The opinions expressed within the podcast are not in any way represent the official opinions.
University of Oxford or the Middle East centre is edited and hosted by myself.
Tilt US Focus is invaluable and inspiring support from Felix Walker.
Michael Memory. Max Randall.
Frederico Emman Johnson.