Kafala Labour Law Reforms. Qatar To Abolish Visa?
Kafala Labour Law Reforms. Qatar To Abolish Visa?
Background
The
emirates sponsorship law, the Kafala Labour law restricted the right of
movement of the foreign workers which resulted in alleged exploitation by the Emirates
on the Foreign Workers and labours.
The
question of amending the labour law arose in the wake of the 2022 World Cup
which is said to be hosted by the country under the mentioned controversy
itself.
The
Kafala Law prevented the Foreign workers from leaving Qatar or changing jobs
with a new system based on employment contracts.
The
revolution came in only after an increased pressure by the international
community to improve the rights and conditions of the migrant workers. The
Amnesty International (Human Rights) Report accused that, Qatar which will be
hosting the 2022 World Cup was failing to implement reforms and stop widespread
labour abuse. The series of events henceforth turned in favour of the Foreign
Workers with the Qatari government amending the Kafala Laws.
Kafala Laws
The
basic objective of the Kafala system was to provide temporary rotating labour
during conditions when the sales in a specific country are at its paramount
level i.e. the economic conditions were at its boom.
the
Kafala system came up with a specific and restricted list of rules and
regulations which were mandatory to be followed by all the Foreign Workers:
·
Under the Kafala System,
a migrant worker’s immigration status is legally bound to an individual
employer or sponsor till the specified contract period.
·
The employer or the
sponsor is known as Kafeel
·
The worker cannot enter the
country, or make a transfer to another country, or leave his employment without
the explicit permission of his Kafeel himself as per the Law No. 21 of 2015
·
In order to enter the
destination country, the migrant worker is bound to be sponsored by a Kafeel
and remain sponsored until his stay in that destination country till the
specified period of work
·
The Kafeel informs the
Immigration migrants regarding the departure of the worker migrant after the
agreements to the contract are fulfilled.
·
The Kafeel after the
accustomed verification and reporting pays for the worker’s flight for home.
·
Arbitrary powers vesting
in the Kafeel included confiscation of passport and travel documents despite
the practice being illegal in many of these (GCC) counties is the basic reason
for the new amendments.
·
Such scenarios made the
migrant completely dependent on the Kafeel for their survival and livelihood in
the foreign land.
·
The migrant workers may
thus may remain vulnerable for years living with an apprehension of detention,
arrest sudden deportation without providing the rightful wages that the
employer deserves
·
The migrant worker is
further constrained by the Kafala system to seek any form of protection or redressal.
The Kafala
(Sponsorship) System monitors the migrant Labourers through the in-country
sponsors who are responsible for their visas and legal status. Thus, Labour
eventually requiring a prior consent of the employer before leaving or changing
jobs which eventually leads to exploitation of the labourers.
Issue
The dehumanising
threat that any individual could be sacked, replaced or deported inhibits the
expatriates from entering into occupation which require physical strength or
such any employments.
The plight of the
workers spread amongst the other sections of migrant workers which eventually
led to draw to necessary emphasis it always required. The reforms announced are
a three year technical cooperation project agreed with the International Labour
Organisation in October 2017 which would follow the labour abuses uncovered by
the organisations such as Amnesty Internationals. The project aimed to revise
the country’s Labour Laws and improve the international labour standards
eventually abolishing the Sponsorship System.
Story of a Victim in the mentioned Propaganda
Many Foreign
Workers such as the Former Al Jaish Team player Zahir Belounis has been a
victim of the Sponsorship System and is pursuing a claim for unpaid wages in
the Qatari Courts. The football was promised wages during his involuntary
deportation to the Al-Markhya, a second Division Team wherein the Former
Captain of Al Jaish (Zahir Belounis) is denied wages. He claimed that
Al-Markhya stopped paying him wages in May 2012 which was agreed upon by the
members of Al-Jaish through a verbal agreement which said the contract to be of
five years in 2010.
In February 2013,
when Zahir filed a complaint against the football team, the Al-Jaish employers
dissented bluntly on the conditions of the agreement and denied exit visas for
any of his family members including his wife and two daughters unless he withdraws
his case from the court. The case is still pending and demands justice.
Reforms that led to the Abolition
A series of
reforms have been introduced in the Kafala Laws since the ILO Convention No. 29
on Forced Labour, to which Qatar is a State Party defines forced labour within
the two points as stated here under:
1. Such
work that an individual is not doing voluntarily.
2. The
work that is extracted under coercion or a threat of penalty.
The motive behind this was that the workers are free
to withdraw or leave from their employment without suffering or having the
apprehension of suffering any penalty or violence.
The reforms are listed
here under:
·
Law No. 13 of
2018, issued by the Emir of Qatar, removes the powers of employers to ban the
migrant workers that are covered by the country’s Labour Law from leaving the
country.
·
The expatriates would now
be able to change their employments at the end of their contracts without the
certification and consent of their Kafeel or recruiters.
·
If the contract is an
open-ended one, the migrant are free to change their jobs after five years.
·
The Kafeels confiscating
the passports under such circumstances would face serious penalties.
Conclusion
The
right to leave any country is the most quintessential component of the right to
free movement. Qatar has about 1.2 million foreign based forced labourers which
are mostly South Asian by origin.
The
other Gulf Countries have also done away with this barbaric law except Saudi
Arabia.
The
treatment of the Foreign Workforce under the massive spotlight has eventually compelled
the Qatari Emir to amend such ambiguous laws.
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