Published Online:January 2025
Product Name:The IUP Journal of International Relations
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJIR040125
DOI:10.71329/IUPJIR/2025.19.1.56-67
Author Name:Mule Rohit Ashok
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:56-67
The Kafala (a labor sponsorship) system, a legal framework for regulating foreign migrant workers through local recruitment agents/agencies, exists in Arab Nations, including the GCC, Jordan, and Lebanon, where the recruitment agent (Kafeel) plays a key role. After the Arab Uprising (2011), the system has come under severe public criticism due to issues such as exclusion of migrant workers from the purview of various domestic humanitarian workers’ laws and the hegemony (monopoly) of the Kafeel in the recruitment of the workers under exploitative terms and conditions. Following intense international criticism, the Gulf regimes were forced to seriously consider reforms concerning the Kafala system. Qatar’s monarchy took the initiative in this regard in 2016. Thereafter, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia followed suit. This paper critically evaluates the Kafala system and the reforms introduced
The labor recruitment system, formally known as the Kafala system, has existed in the Gulf countries since the 20th century. Over time, the agent-based labor recruitment process has been structuralized into the Gulf economic system, while specific