Hundreds of Kenyan migrants employed in Qatar as domestic
workers, cleaners, drivers and chefs can now come back home freely after
the Middle East nation abolished its controversial exit visa system,
which requires foreigners to obtain their bosses’ permission to exit the
country.
Qatar authorities said on Sunday the “Law No
13 of 2018… regulating the entry, exit and residency of expatriates
would be implemented effective this week.
Kenya on
Monday welcomed the move saying it raises hope of an end to mistreatment
of locals seeking bread and butter in Qatar. It asked other middle east
nations to follow suit.
“It is a welcome development
of putting to an end a heinous and outmoded system that has sinister
echoes of a dark and oppressive time of shackled labour and slavery,”
Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Macharia Kamau said in an
interview yesterday.
“We welcome the development and
hope that Qatar’s enlightened leadership will resonate across the Arab
Middle East, where similar systems of denial of free passage of peoples
and labour continues to cause great difficulties and suffering among
migrant workers and even some professionals,” Mr Kamau said.
Kenya
has over the years called for abolition of the exit visa system as it
had long been abused by employers who would confiscate passports of
workers.
Most Kenyan migrants are employed as domestic
workers and are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, violence, rape and
sometimes murder.
Many of them who have returned home
from Qatar and other Middle East nations have come back with harrowing
tales of mistreatment, torture and abuse by their employers, with many
blaming the exit visa system for their predicaments.
But
under the new law, all but five per cent of a company’s
workforce-reportedly those in the most senior positions-can leave
without prior permission from employers.
Those not
allowed to exit Qatar “for any reason” can file a complaint to the
Expatriate Exit Grievance Committee that will “take a decision within
three working days”, the Qatar ministry was quoted as saying.
Employment
contracts involving migrant workers in the Middle East are based on the
ancient Bedouin principle of kafala, which many liken to modern-day
slavery.
What was once essentially a code of
hospitality – that encouraged families to host travelling strangers and
treat them as one of their own – has evolved into the sponsorship of
migrant workers, which gives employers enormous control over their
employees. Common practices include the withholding of wages,
confiscation of passports and long working hours in substandard or
inhuman conditions.
Domestic workers, who are obliged
to live in their employer’s homes, are particularly vulnerable to
physical abuse, sexual violence and various forms of mental cruelty,
while the almost total lack of labour laws for migrants provides little
scope for redress.
Kenya in September 2014 announced a
ban on export of labour to Middle East countries but later lifted it
last year after instituting reforms that included vetting of recruitment
agencies.
In 2013, the Kenyan embassy in Riyadh rescued more than 800 Kenyans languishing in Saudi jails.
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