UPDATES TO KAFALA

Par Maya GHANDOUR HERT, Edgar DAVIDIAN, Colette KHALAF, Gilles KHOURY et Zéna ZALZAL.

News In Brief.

The British newspaper, The Telegraph, published an report titled “‘I want to leave but I’m scared’: Pandemic increases risk of violence for Gulf’s domestic workers” in which it reported allegations of housemaids in Kuwait stating that they were subjected to ill treatment and during the outbreak of Corona epidemic it increased.

The growth of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, spurred by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, USA, has reopened a much-needed debate in American society about the persistence of structural racism. Ethnic or racial discrimination, however, is a global phenomenon, present in virtually every corner of the globe, and the Arab world, with its long tradition of slavery, is no exception. The huge fallout from the protests in the US has provided equality activists in the Arab world with a chance to tackle a serious taboo in the public arena: racism towards Black people.

Dans un nouveau rapport, Amnesty International révèle que les employé·e·s domestiques étrangers embauchés au Qatar sont poussés jusqu’au point de rupture par la surcharge extrême de travail, le manque de repos et les traitements abusifs et dégradants. Après avoir mené des entretiens avec 105 femmes travaillant comme employées de maison et logées par leur employeur au Qatar, elle a constaté que leurs droits sont toujours piétinés et bafoués malgré les réformes mises en œuvre par le gouvernement pour améliorer leurs conditions de travail. Certaines affirment avoir été victimes de graves infractions, notamment de violences sexuelles.

One in every 130 women and girls worldwide is living in modern slavery, according to the new Stacked Odds report launched by Walk Free and Every Woman Every Child. Child marriage is a serious problem worldwide, and research suggests that the phenomenon will become more widespread due to the impact of COVID-19 and its prevention responses. It remains an area where we must protect the progress made so far, and work together to achieve gender equality and ensure that all women and girls live up to their full potential.

Lockdown measures, put in place to stem the spread of the virus, have put already vulnerable domestic maids under more pressure

A young lady, Yaa Baby Oparebea Asare who travelled to work as a house help in Saudi Arabia and some other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has narrated her harrowing ordeal.

The second international migration summit by the Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM) ended on Friday at the Pensioners FM, Ibadan, Oyo State with a call to the African leaders to deliver good governance to halt continued enslavement of the Africans in other continents through irregular migration. The conference themed: Migration governance and media strategy […]

In collaboration with Migrant Rights, a non-profit organisation which advocates for the rights of migrant workers in the Gulf, and This is Lebanon, a coalition of former migrant workers and activists working to advance the protection of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, Send Us Home Kenya is organising a webinar to enhance Kenyan stakeholders’ knowledge on kafala, a system that governs the employment of foreign workers in various countries in the Middle East.