Migrant workers in Kuwait constitute a significant proportion of the population.
Kafeel sponsorship system
mandates that expatriates must be sponsored by a local employer to get a work permit. In August 2008, MP Abdullah Al-Roumi declared that he was going to draft a law to scrap Kuwait’s "kafeel" foreign worker sponsorship system: "The government should be the only kafeel... We have scores of bachelors residing in Kuwait with an equal number of crimes. Many are caused due to the 'trading with humans' issue which taints the reputation of Kuwait." The government is currently planning to scrap the 'sponsorship system' in favor of a new system will be implemented to allow the expatriate workers to transfer their residence permits to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of InteriorLt Gen Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah announced an increase in the minimum salary which is 500KD for foreign workers if they want to sponsor a member of their family.
Minimum wage
In the parliamentary debates over the Kuwaiti minimum wage, MPs Askar Al-Enezi and Sadoon Al-Otaibi have dismissed past wage increases as “too small” and not enough to meet the steep hikes in consumer prices. On February 21, 2008, the parliament approved a 120 dinar monthly pay rise for nationals in the public and private sectors after inflation hit 7.3%, a 15-year high. It also decided to raise by 50 dinars the pay of foreigners employed by the government. In response, Al-Enezi said, “We reject this increase because it is well below expectations. We urge the government to review its decision."
Anti-trafficking reform
In September 2008, MP Saleh Al-Mulla demanded from Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Bader Al-Duwailah a list of companies involved in human trafficking. Mulla also asked about the measures taken against the violating companies and other steps that would be taken in the future to prevent such violations from taking place.
Blacklist for those who mistreat foreign workers
On October 2, 2007, Waleed Al-Tabtabaie called for the interior ministry to draw up a blacklist of employers who mistreat their domestic helpers and urged stiff penalties for physical abuse. Al-Tabtabaie said that employers who abuse their maids "physically or morally" should be added to the blacklist and prevented from hiring new maids. Al-Tabtabie, a member of parliament's human rights panel, argued that the phenomenon of maid abuse "has lately increased to a disturbing level and a large number of abuses are committed annually, with most cases failing to reach the court." In September 2007, Kuwait opened a temporary shelter to house runaway maids until their disputes with employers are resolved. The Kuwaiti government plans to open two permanent centres for males and females to be housed separately.
In February 2018, the body of Filipino migrant worker, 28-year-old Joanna Demafelis, was located, found in an apartment her employers, married couple Nader Essam Assaf and Mona Hassoun. There was evidence she'd been tortured before she was strangled to death and forensic evidence determined it was likely she'd died more than a year before her body was discovered. When news of her murder reached the media, Assaf, a Lebanese national, and Hassoun successfully fled Kuwait but were ultimately arrested in Syria. A little over a month after their arrests, Assaf confessed he'd murdered Demafelis and both he and his wife were sentenced to death by hanging. Though Kuwaiti authorities responded quickly in apprehending the people responsible for Demafelis' murder and sentenced the both of them to death, the incident ignited outrage in the Philippines and prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to ban Filipino citizens from working Kuwait, resulting in what would become known as the 2018 Kuwait–Philippine diplomatic crisis. Home to more than 250,000 migrant workers from the Philippines, approximately 60% of whom work in domestic labor, and Kuwait is a top source of remittance for the Philippines. Despite the commonness of Filipino nationals traveling to Kuwait to work, the conditions of migrant workers has been of concern for human rights organisations and the Filipino government for some time, with reports of Filipinos being enslaved, sexually abused, and murdered by their employers or residents in the Persian Gulf. Not wanting to lose its Filipino workforce, the Kuwaiti government passed legislation in May 2018 requiring employers to allow Filipino migrant workers the right to possess their own passport, the right to a 12-hour work day with a one-hour break and one day off per week, an end-of-the-year bonus, and access to a working cell phone.
