Despite the recent implementation of domestic worker laws across the GCC, there remain few avenues for the region’s 4 million domestic workers to claim their rights. Support systems are scarce, and those that are available are not well-resourced. Our latest printable tool maps the official recourse mechanisms and select community resources for domestic workers in each of the Gulf countries — while acknowledging that rights on paper do not always translate to rights on the ground.
Official complaints procedures are often unclear, and not adequately tailored to the needs of workers who have little access to communication and even littler mobility. The problem is further compounded by constraints placed on civil society, lack of legal aid, and fear of being penalised for helping ‘runaway’ workers. Government resources are weak and difficult to access; the document maps out common barriers to the institutions that should provide aid to workers including physical access, language barriers, demonstrate how protections on paper rarely translate to protections in real life.
Domestic workers must also find a way to lodge complaints on their own behalf as third parties are often not allowed to raise violations. This places a heavy burden on workers to extract themselves from exploitative situations and present their complaint to authorities while avoiding charges of “absconding,” or leaving their workplace without permission Though complaint procedures often prevent employers from reporting workers as absconding once the complaint is filed, there is nothing preventing employers from filing such reports at the hint of any dispute. Once a worker is reported as absconding, they are often subject to immediate deportation without an investigation, except in cases of extreme and apparent physical abuse. Employers also increasingly lodge theft cases instead of absconding cases to avoid suspicion of a false counterclaim, which further complicates the redressal process.
The fate of a worker who files a complaint is unclear; in the UAE, Qatar, and Oman, there are no shelters specific to domestic workers. Each country runs shelters for trafficking victims and victims of domestic violence, but these issues are narrowly defined and exclude forced or exploitative labour practices. These facilities tend to accept domestic workers only in exceptional circumstances.
