ShareKUWAIT: The
Government of Kuwait does not fully meet the minimum standards for the
elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The
government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous
reporting period; therefore Kuwait was upgraded to Tier 2. The government
demonstrated overall increasing efforts by deploying its specialized
trafficking unit to initiate more criminal investigations of potential trafficking
crimes and more prosecutions under the anti-trafficking law.
It referred significantly more potential trafficking victims for protective
services, operationalized its central recruitment agency in an attempt to hire
and better safeguard the rights of hundreds of domestic workers, and increased
enforcement of its domestic worker law. However, the government did not meet
the minimum standards in several key areas. Rather than prosecuting potential
criminals for human trafficking, officials continued to routinely use
arbitration and administrative penalties to resolve grievances filed by
domestic and other migrant workers instead of investigating such cases as human
trafficking crimes, and protracted litigation and subsequent appeals processes
led most victims to decline to file court cases.
By not holding traffickers criminally accountable with stringent sentences, the
government perpetuated a climate of impunity that failed to deter future
crimes. The government did not regularly use standard procedures for
proactively identifying victims and continued to detain, prosecute, and deport
trafficking victims, including those fleeing forced labor.
Prioritized
recommendations
Increase law enforcement efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict
traffickers, including Kuwaiti citizens, under the 2013 anti-trafficking law
rather than treating potential forced labor cases as administrative violations.
• Proactively screen for trafficking indicators among vulnerable populations,
and during migrant round-ups and amnesty periods to ensure victims are not
wrongfully penalized or deported for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them
to commit.
• Institute reforms to the sponsorship-based employment system, including by
allowing all workers to change employers without necessitated employer approval
and ceasing prosecution of workers who flee their employment. • In adherence to
Kuwaiti labor law, increase investigations and punishment of employers who
illegally confiscate migrant workers' passports. • Institute trainings for all
relevant officials on mechanisms to proactively identify and refer to
protection services all victims of human trafficking and routinely employ these
procedures.
• Continue to strengthen enforcement of the domestic labor law to ensure
domestic workers' rights are protected. • Eliminate worker-paid recruitment
fees. • Commence construction on or allocate existing facility space for a
shelter to accommodate male victims. • Continue to convene the official
governmental committee and strengthen implementation of the national
anti-trafficking strategy. • Expand efforts to raise anti-trafficking
awareness, particularly among vulnerable populations, including migrant
workers.
Prosecution
The government maintained law enforcement efforts. The 2013 anti-trafficking
law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties
of up to 15 years' imprisonment for offenses involving an adult male victim and
up to life imprisonment for those involving an adult female or child victim.
These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with regard to sex
trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such
as rape.
In addition, the Public Prosecutor's Office (PPO) and the Ministry of Interior
(MOI) launched a new policy in January 2019 requiring all cases of buying and
trading of fraudulent visas, withholding of salaries and passports in excess of
three months, or forcing individuals into jobs different from those
contractually agreed upon be prosecuted under the anti-trafficking law rather
than the labor law; this accounted for 21 of the reported investigations during
the period.
The government's specialized trafficking unit investigated 50 potential
trafficking cases during the reporting year, compared to 60 investigations in
the previous reporting period; 21 of the 50 investigations were the result of
the new PPO/MOI policy guidance on the anti-trafficking law. It discovered such
cases through tips from foreign embassies, civil society, hotlines, the
government-run shelter, and the MOI's Domestic Labor Department (DLD). In 2018,
officials prosecuted eight cases-four for forced labor and four for sex
trafficking-compared to five cases in 2017.
The government convicted an unknown number of defendants in one case under the anti-trafficking
law, and seven additional trafficking cases awaited sentencing at the close of
the current reporting period; during the previous reporting period, it
convicted six sex traffickers in one case and sentenced them to between 15
years and life imprisonment. In 2018, the government did not report sentencing
details or disaggregated information on convictions for forced labor versus sex
trafficking crimes committed. However, in April 2018, the Criminal Court
sentenced a Kuwaiti national and three stateless Arabs to life imprisonment for
forcing 32 male workers into prostitution.
Generally, Kuwaiti authorities did not categorize or investigate labor
violations of domestic workers as human trafficking and continued to typically
treat such cases as administrative infractions. Officials commonly used
arbitration, which resulted in monetary compensation and repayment of
back-wages to victims, administrative fines, and closure of recruitment firms
to resolve such cases. Such resolution neither enforces stringent punishment to
deter future crimes, nor provides victims care to heal from the trauma of the
trafficking experience.
If a settlement could not be agreed upon, DLD officials referred the case to
the labor courts, and if the complaint involved a gross violation, such as
assault or domestic worker abuse, authorities transferred the case directly to
the public prosecutor's office. Many domestic worker abuse cases were not
prosecuted due to lack of evidence or witnesses. As a result, only severe cases
of domestic worker abuse-usually involving significant bodily injury or
death-were prosecuted, and typically as violations of other criminal laws
instead of trafficking. In some cases, media reported the government sought
prosecution of potential trafficking cases for abuse or simple assault rather
than as violations of anti-trafficking laws.
Although the withholding of workers' passports is prohibited under Kuwaiti law,
this practice remained commonplace among sponsors and employers of foreign
workers. During the reporting period, the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM)
received 2,489 complaints of confiscated passports; the government did not
report how many employers PAM ordered to return employees' identification
documents. Some government officials allegedly sold work permits to illegal
recruiters or even directly to migrant workers, potentially facilitating
trafficking; the government did not report efforts to prosecute and convict
officials complicit in trafficking or trafficking-related offenses.
The MOI's anti-trafficking unit conducted two training sessions, on trafficking
indicators and a victim-centered approach to law enforcement efforts, for 37
trainees drawn from all MOI departments; in the prior year, there were four
such training sessions. The government also participated in and provided
in-kind support for three international organization-sponsored trainings and
capacity-building programs for law enforcement sectors of the MOI, including
the specialized anti-trafficking unit and DLD. Throughout the reporting period,
more than 110 employees from PAM, MOI, and the Ministry of Justice attended two
anti-trafficking seminars on how to identify victims. The DLD continued its
production of internal training programs on a weekly basis targeting investigators
and labor inspectors.
Protection
The government demonstrated increased efforts to protect trafficking victims.
In 2018, an international organization reported that the government had
identified and referred approximately 800 vulnerable domestic workers and
potential trafficking victims to its shelter, substantially up from the 48
potential victims it referred during the previous year. Of these, the MOI and
PAM, in cooperation with an international organization, identified and provided
voluntary repatriation and transition assistance for more than 300 identified
trafficking victims during the reporting period.
It provided shelter to a total of 1,600 domestic workers, of whom an
international organization reported roughly 20-30 percent were likely trafficking
victims; this is compared to 3,000 in 2017. Many of those admitted to the
shelter had fled poor working conditions, including excessive hours and delayed
payment of wages, or desired to return to their respective countries of origin.
The government also used the facility to host domestic workers awaiting
repatriation, or deportation if facing criminal charges.
Additionally, of the total number of domestic worker complaints the DLD
received, it referred 40 domestic workers to the government-run shelter during
the year. Although the government had in place since 2015 a screening process
to proactively identify potential trafficking victims among vulnerable
populations, the extent to which the government employed this proactive
screening mechanism was unknown. During the year, the government-run shelter
received referrals from embassies, NGOs, international organizations, churches,
private citizens, and other migrant workers. Officials ratified a national
referral mechanism in 2018 that aimed to improve intergovernmental
coordination, provide training for judicial and prosecutorial personnel, and
expedite criminal charges in forced labor cases; however, the government did
not implement this revised mechanism during the reporting period.
The shelter served as a one-stop facility, providing medical and psychological
care, food, rehabilitation support, and access to officials from various
ministries to facilitate legal and repatriation assistance. Residents at the
shelter had access to cell phones and freedom of movement to leave on
supervised regular outings. Despite government allocation and budgetary
approval for construction of a male shelter during the previous reporting
period, Kuwait did not commence construction of such a shelter during the
current reporting period.
The government provided an annual budget of two million Kuwaiti dinar ($6.6
million) for domestic worker shelter operations and protection programs for
trafficking victims. Some international organizations, in conjunction with
foreign affairs officials, provided assistance to an unknown number of domestic
workers from nations without diplomatic representation in Kuwait who needed to
procure travel documentation. Embassies of the Philippines, India, and Sri
Lanka maintained their own domestic worker shelters and worked closely with the
Kuwaiti government to seek compensation and legal redress for their nationals
subjected to exploitative working conditions in the country.
In cooperation with international organizations and foreign embassies, the
government assisted victims in retrieving documentation and funding for
repatriation; and in the case of administrative deportation officials provided
airline tickets and worked to recoup associated costs from the accused
employers. Beyond the repatriation and transition assistance, MOI and PAM
provided for more than 300 foreign domestic workers who were trafficking
victims during the reporting period, the DLD provided repatriation assistance
for 120 female domestic workers who fled exploitative employers.
The government allowed victims residing in its shelter to either change
sponsors or be repatriated to their country of origin once their residency
status was resolved or pending the resolution of a legal case, without
respective sponsor approval. It did not report deporting those who faced
retaliation or retribution in their respective home countries. Rather, the
government allowed all trafficking victims to change employers and maintain
residence in Kuwait or otherwise be repatriated to a third country at the
victims' request.
In May 2018, the government allowed foreign nationals present in Kuwait in
violation of their residency status, reported to have absconded from their
employers during the period from January 2016 to April 2018, to seek amnesty and
legalize their status or depart the country without penalty. The government did
not report how many trafficking victims it identified from this offer of
amnesty or if it proactively screened for trafficking indicators among
applicants and subsequent deportees.
Authorities continued to arrest, prosecute, and deport some workers who fled
their sponsors without permission or recourse to the judicial system. The risk
of penalization, coupled with protracted litigation processes and exorbitantly
high legal fees, discouraged workers from appealing to police or other
authorities for protection and adequate legal redress for their exploitation.
In addition, it was not uncommon for sponsors to file counter-grievances
against their employees, including trafficking victims who reported abuse. This
sometimes resulted in administrative deportation or detention of the employees
and victims. Within worker communities, there existed a persistent fear that
confiding in authorities would result in deportation, imprisonment, or return
to the employer in question. The government reported public prosecutors
willingly tried cases on victims' behalf using their oral and written
statements; however, it lacked privacy laws to protect victims against
potential retribution and often was unable to provide adequate care for victims
throughout the duration of legal proceedings. Media reported that the
government directed settlements in response to individual civil suits against
employers, but the government did not report how many victims received
restitution during the year.
Prevention
The government continued robust efforts to prevent human trafficking. In
November 2018, the Minister of Justice issued a ministerial decree on the
formation of the Permanent National Committee for the Implementation of the
National Strategy for the Prevention of Trafficking that was approved and
funded by the Council of Ministers during the previous reporting year. The
Committee did not officially convene during the reporting period; nonetheless,
relevant government entities commenced implementation of several action items
in the national anti-trafficking strategy.
Key ministries, in collaboration with an international organization,
financially supported and conducted numerous public awareness campaigns at
shopping malls and the international airport to raise awareness of trafficking
and warned against using illegal domestic labor recruitment companies. Various
officials also took part in anti-trafficking awareness messaging on local
television, radio, and social media platforms. It continued to disseminate
pamphlets to educate migrant workers on their rights, which were published in
multiple languages and disseminated in airports, embassies, and
labor-recruitment agencies.
The domestic labor law (Law 68/15) guaranteed domestic workers one day off per
week, a maximum 12-hour workday, minimum wages paid per month, paid annual
leave, and access to file formal grievances at the MOI, among other
protections. The 2016 by-laws regulated implementation of this law. Amendments
to the 2010 labor law, passed in 2016, increased penalties for non-payment of
wages, made mandatory documentation of all paid wages, and required prison time
and fines for employers and government officials who failed to adhere to
provisions of this law.
During the reporting period, the government transferred the DLD from the MOI to
PAM, based upon recommendations that having the DLD under the MOI deterred
workers from seeking assistance. In adherence to the domestic labor law, the
DLD received 433 complaints directly from domestic workers during the year,
1,835 from employers, and 60 from recruitment offices and companies. Of these,
it referred 448 cases to the labor courts, collected 14,440 Kuwaiti dinar
($47,650) in unpaid wages for domestic workers, and referred 40 of these
domestic workers to the government-run shelter during the reporting period.
In addition, PAM shut down 72 companies and suspended 1,510 companies for being
in violation of Kuwaiti labor laws. Authorities continued to apply the amended
provisions of the domestic labor law by building a monetary reserve to
adjudicate cases of labor law violations to pay unpaid wages and cover the
costs of repatriation. For issuance or renewal of a license for a domestic
labor recruitment firm, it enforced the rule that single offices must submit
financial deposits of 40,000 Kuwaiti dinar ($132,010) with a two-year validity
and larger companies to present a letter of guarantee worth 100,000 Kuwaiti
dinar ($330,030).
The DLD continued to investigate domestic worker recruitment agencies and
inspect residences to ensure compliance with the 2015 domestic labor law. In
addition, it initiated investigations based on grievances filed by domestic
workers, employers, and embassies of labor-sending countries.
The government arbitrated such grievances and did not report referring any for
criminal investigation or prosecution. During the reporting period, DLD
officials received 1,328 work-related complaints, amicably resolved 579 in
extrajudicial proceedings, referred 333 to labor courts for further
investigation, and the others remained pending. The DLD also conducted 404
inspections of domestic worker recruitment firms and consequently permanently
shut down 30 and suspended 11 such agencies for three to six months for
violation of the domestic labor law, compared to 82 closures the previous year;
officials did not refer any of these for criminal investigation or prosecution.
Separately, the PAM received 16,626 official grievances from foreign laborers,
the most common of which included pay discrepancies, denied requests to
transfer employers, and disputes regarding overtime pay issuances. Authorities
reported resolving 90 percent of the employment transfer grievances in favor of
the employees, to include transference of employer or receipt of unpaid wages;
it referred the remaining 5,805 unresolved cases via arbitration to the labor
courts.
At the close of the reporting period, the outcomes of these cases were unknown,
and the government did not report referring any of these cases for criminal
investigation or prosecution under the anti-trafficking law. In 2018, PAM
investigated 248 companies engaged in fraudulent visa practices and referred
all of them to the PPO or the MOI's trafficking-specific investigative unit.
In February 2019, media reported the government's centralized recruitment
company-named Al Durra-recruited nearly 900 male and female domestic workers
since its launch in late 2017. In adherence to the domestic labor law, Al Durra
worked to reduce recruitment costs, curb illegal recruitment fees, provide
greater oversight of recruiting practices, hire male domestic workers, and
secure labor agreements for female employees.
According to press reports, new workers from Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines,
and Burkina Faso arrived to Kuwait via Al Durra, and 150 additional contracts
remained in process at the conclusion of the reporting period. In May 2018,
Kuwaiti officials signed an agreement with the Philippine government to
regulate the recruitment and employment of Filipino domestic workers in Kuwait
to better safeguard their legal protections.
Based on this treaty, which entered into forced in January 2019, the Philippine
government lifted its February 2018-imposed travel ban on sending Filipino workers
to Kuwait. Similarly, in October 2018, Kuwait and India signed an MOU on
broader protections for domestic workers, and ratified it in January 2019. This
resulted in the end of India's 2014 ban on sending Indian female domestic
workers to Kuwait. The agreement with India guaranteed registration of the
employee-sponsor contact information with the Indian Embassy, an established
monthly minimum wage for Indian laborers, and all employers would use the
government's centralized recruitment company with Indian government-authorized
recruitment agencies. In April 2018, the Commerce Ministry revoked the licenses
of 116 domestic labor recruitment agencies for contravening Kuwaiti labor laws
and exploiting an unspecified number of domestic workers during the course of
their employment. This ministry also capped at 990 Kuwaiti dinar ($3,270) the
ceiling for mandatory recruitment fees employers pay to agencies to recruit
domestic employees; in actuality, a portion of these fees were transferred to
the domestic employees.
During the reporting period, authorities employed the services of the Mobile
Labor Disputes Office to help workers in remote areas of the country file
complaints against employers for labor law violations. The mobile unit was run
by an emergency team of investigators, inspectors, translators, lawyers, and
lay volunteers. Officials also advertised to migrant laborers online services
that allowed workers and employers to dock and track workplace issues
electronically, receive alerts if an employer filed an absconding charge,
notify the respective source country embassy, and challenge legal settlements
incurred.
Both the DLD and the MOI's anti-trafficking department operated hotlines to
assist vulnerable migrant workers, to include potential trafficking victims,
but neither entity reported how many trafficking-specific calls they received
during the reporting period. The government made efforts to reduce the demand
for commercial sex. The government provided annual anti-trafficking training
for its diplomatic personnel.
Trafficking
profile
As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims
in Kuwait. Men and women migrate primarily from South and Southeast Asia,
Egypt, and the Middle East, to work predominantly in the domestic service,
construction, hospitality, and sanitation sectors, and the vast majority arrive
voluntarily. Unskilled laborers and female domestic workers are especially
vulnerable to forced labor, as they often have limited access to assistance due
to the absence of diplomatic representation in Kuwait.
As conditions for many remain perilous, numerous labor-sending countries,
including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya,
Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania,
Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, continue to restrict their female nationals from
domestic employment in Kuwait. In January 2019, the Philippine government
lifted the February 2018-imposed travel ban on Filipino workers to Kuwait due
to strengthened regulatory oversight of recruitment and employment of Filipino
domestic workers.
Similarly, in October 2018, Kuwait and India signed an agreement on broader
protections for domestic workers, which resulted in the end of India's 2014 ban
on Indian female domestic workers. As more countries restrict labor movement to
Kuwait, however, the government has continued its recruitment of domestic
employees from African labor-sending countries including most recently from
Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia.
Upon arrival, some sponsors subject migrants to forced labor through the
following: non-payment of wages, protracted working hours contrary to
contractual agreements, deprivation of food, substandard housing, threats or
harassment, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as
confinement to the workplace and passport confiscation. Although unlawful,
passport withholding by employers is ubiquitous in Kuwait. Furthermore, many
migrant workers pay exorbitant fees to recruiting agents in their countries of
origin and/or are coerced into paying labor broker fees in Kuwait, which,
according to Kuwaiti law should be paid by the employer, thereby rendering
workers vulnerable to forced labor, including debt bondage. In some cases,
officials do not provide workers copies of their contracts, or the contracts
are not written in a language they can read. Additionally, many sponsors pay
high fees to agencies for migrant workers. Some illegal labor recruiting
companies facilitate trafficking through the use of deceptive techniques to
bring in migrant workers on the basis of unenforceable contracts, fraudulent
visas, and nonexistent positions. Some officials allegedly take bribes or
overtly sell work permits to illegal labor recruiting companies or directly to
migrant workers.
For more than a decade, press reports indicated that the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) sent more than 4,000 North Korean
laborers to Kuwait for forced labor on construction projects, sourced by a
North Korean company operated by the Workers' Party of Korea and the North
Korean military. According to these reports, employees worked 14 to 16 hours a
day while the company retained 80 to 90 percent of their wages. The company
also monitored and confined workers, who lived in impoverished conditions and
were in very poor health due to lack of adequate nutrition and health care. In
previous reporting periods, the government ceased issuing new visas to North
Korean workers, discontinued all residency permit renewals, and repatriated
virtually all of them.
Kuwait's sponsorship law-which ties a migrant worker's legal residence and
valid immigration status to their employer-restricts workers' movements and
penalizes them for leaving abusive workplaces. Domestic workers are particularly
vulnerable to forced labor inside private homes, as endemic cultural
attitudes-particularly regarding the sanctity of the private
household-sometimes enabled the exploitation of expatriate workers. Many
workers report experiencing work conditions substantially different from those
described in the contract. In addition, previous sources report runaway
domestic workers are sometimes exploited in sex trafficking by agents or
criminals, who manipulate their illegal status.
