Domestic workers in the Gulf will be entitled to end of service indemnity and overtime pay for extra work. Employers won’t be allowed to confiscate their passports or documents, or forbid them from leaving the house. The new contracts also limits the working day to eight hours. Of course this is not the ideal contract yet, but it’s a major improvement from the previous one and the one we have in Lebanon.
It’s sad how we always brag about being a democratic country that respects human rights, yet we haven’t been able to change this pro-slavery Kafala system.
Read the full article [Here].
Gulf labour ministers have agreed on minimum terms to improve the contracts of more than two million domestic staff working in the region, a top official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
The move comes as labour ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are to meet with their Asian counterparts in Kuwait this week to discuss the issue.
The new contract entitles domestic workers to a weekly day off, annual leave and the right to live outside their employer’s house, the director general of Kuwait’s Public Manpower Authority, Jamal Al Dossari, told AFP.
Thanks Mustapha!
i know that a lot of Lebanese try to chnage the system and that it’s not fair for demostic workers not to leave the house ,but a lot if men out there and i have heard and seen are after female domestic workers and are after preys and would do anything even to target the houses some of these domestic workers work in as way of robbery .Please do not generalize ,not all families are abusive .
I’m sorry but your comment is outrageously ridiculous. Should we encourage slavery to avoid dealing with felons? Should we enprison girls to keep them safe? And on a different note, should we not own property fearing it will get stolen?
Btw, It is defenitely abusive to keep your employee enslaved no matter how well you treat them.
Andre,there are a loot of felons out there ,more than you’d think,or otherwise these workers should be then given awareness about them and how some people target them .And i only gave one aspect of my opinion ,noo i don’t encourage the law to retain them as prisoners .
Awareness is key here Maya, that’s for sure. First, the girls should be aware of the situation, and second law enforcement, employers and people should be aware of their rights as human beings. We should all work on improving the situation, and not avoid it by making their lives miserable. I appreciate your comment, and understand your point of view, and believe a collaborative approach shoul be taken to deal with this issue.
It isn’t pro-slavery, it’s pseudo-slavery. Kafalat doesn’t actively endorse slavery, rather it enforces a system that is like slavery. There is a big difference between the two. If you are going to blog in English, at least do so correctly. I notice that you often make fun of others for their English-language mistakes – shop signs, etc – and yet you make many yourself.
If you are going to correct someone make sure you get you facts straight…. Pseudo reflects “fake” or “fraudulent”, like for example Lebanon being a democracy. On paper, by image and by law it is a democracy but in reality not really, that makes Lebanon pseudo-democratic. What you described would be pseudo-anti-slavery, since they claim to be against it but in reality they are endorsing it.