In Kuwait, the shelter operated by the Public Authority for Manpower, opened in 2014 with capacity to accommodate up to 500 women domestic workers, has become a regular destination for US ambassadors, particularly around the International Day Against Trafficking in Persons. The visits have followed a remarkably similar pattern. In 2016, the US ambassador described the shelter as an exceptional facility in the Middle East and praised Kuwait for its efforts to support workers who had encountered abuse. In 2018, a different US ambassador toured the shelter and praised Kuwait's efforts to improve the living conditions of migrant workers. In 2021, the new US ambassador and five other foreign ambassadors visited the shelter, with the US ambassador describing its efforts to accommodate workers in need of assistance as "great." In 2024, another US ambassador praised the shelter for providing its residents with social and psychological protection and dignified accommodation. Year after year, these visits and statements have helped turn the shelter into a symbol of Kuwait's commitment to combating trafficking, with foreign diplomats, mainly US ambassadors, knowingly or not, providing an important layer of legitimacy to that claim.
The shelter itself is important. Victims of trafficking and other workers facing abuse need somewhere safe to go. But a shelter should be a last resort, not the measure of whether a country is preventing trafficking or protecting workers. There is little publicly available evidence that the shelter has functioned primarily as a mechanism for identifying trafficking cases, referring them to authorities, or triggering investigations into trafficking. The repeated diplomatic tours rarely prompt questions about why workers need the shelter in the first place. None of the US ambassadors who visited the shelter condemned the kafala system or the country’s legal restrictions on changing employers, nor other factors that created the need for the shelter. Instead, the shelter is presented as evidence of Kuwait's exceptional response to trafficking, while the very system that drives workers into the shelter itself remains largely outside the story.
The mechanism is not limited to state bodies. The Riyadh-based non-profit Ibtissam (‘Smile’) seems to perform a similar function. The organisation's own reporting - Opens in new tab provides little insight into its work or impact. Although ‘providing care to trafficking victims’ is listed among Ibtissam's strategic objectives, its 2024 and 2025 annual reports do not disclose how many trafficking victims it provided care for. Between 2023 and 2025, Ibtissam spent - Opens in new tab approximately SAR 1.66 million (USD 442,600), with the overwhelming majority allocated to salaries, office rent, insurance, and other administrative expenses. In 2025, the organisation's most tangible publicly reported - Opens in new tab activity was a single online seminar held in July to mark the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, attended by approximately 130 participants and promoted with UN certificate branding. In 2026, Ibtissam organised another webinar - Opens in new tab on Saudi National Day and conducted - Opens in new tab training for some of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) staff.
Underlying this bureaucratic approach to trafficking is the NGO’s conceptualisation of the issue. In an interview with Al-Yamama magazine in 2020, its chair, Princess Dr Madawi bint Abdulrahman Al Saud, stated that trafficking is "easier and more widespread in the Western world" because of its "fragile systems", while the Arab world benefits from "established and very solid systems" that "dry up the sources of the crime." Consequently, she claimed, “our country's trafficking caseload is much lower than the Western average." Notably absent from the interview was any discussion of kafala, domestic workers, or forced labour issues in the Saudi labour market. Princess Madawi received the ‘Global Ambassador Award’ from the US-based NOMI Network in the same year.
To be sure, Ibtissam and the broader Saudi nonprofit ecosystem are relatively new, and it may be premature to judge their long-term impact. Ibtissam posted a job vacancy for a ‘programme and project specialist’, which may suggest it plans to expand its operations and conduct more activities in the future. Nevertheless, Ibtissam illustrates another feature of the anti-trafficking industry: organisations adopting the language of victim protection while producing little evidence of doing so.
The problem is not that these institutions and efforts accomplish nothing. It is that their success is measured almost entirely by processes rather than outcomes. Workshops replace access to justice, partnerships replace victim protection, and ceremonies and photoshoots substitute for dismantling the legal structures that continuously generate forced labour and trafficking. It is an industry that keeps performing but rarely serves the people it claims to help.
MRRORS reached out to Ibtissam for comment but has not received a response at the date of publication.
