Last month - Opens in new tab, the UAE ratified the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Protocol of 2014 - Opens in new tab to the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, becoming the second Gulf state to do so after Saudi Arabia did in 2021. The Protocol will enter into force for the UAE on 15 January 2027, twelve months after ratification.
The 2014 Protocol requires - Opens in new tab ratifying States to take comprehensive measures to suppress forced labour, protect victims, ensure access to effective remedies, including compensation, and sanction perpetrators. Importantly, it also obliges States to address the root causes and risk factors that increase vulnerability to forced labour.
While the ratification is a step in the right direction, its practical impact remains uncertain. As long as the Kafala system, as implemented in the UAE and other Gulf states, remains fundamentally unchanged – and existing practices for handling forced labour cases persist – it is doubtful if ratification alone will lead to the eradication of forced labour.
Experience elsewhere in the region illustrates this point. In 2024, the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) submitted a representation - Opens in new tab under Article 24 of the ILO Constitution alleging Saudi Arabia’s non-observance of the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), the 2014 Protocol, and other related Conventions. Despite Saudi labour reforms, BWI argued that Saudi Arabia’s kafala system continues to enable widespread abuse. And by granting employers extensive control over migrant workers’ legal status and mobility under the Kafala system, low-wage migrant workers continue to face exacerbated vulnerabilities.
As previously reported by MRRORS, a migration system that ties a worker’s residency and legal status to a private employer exposes workers to conditions of entrapment, coercion, and abusive working conditions that may amount to forced labour, while simultaneously giving employers disproportionate control over workers’ residency and livelihood. Such structural features are among the root causes of forced labour conditions – precisely the issues Article 2 of the 2014 Protocol requires States to address.
Beyond structural reform, enforcement and access to remedies remain critical concerns. The U.S. State Department’s 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report - Opens in new tab noted that UAE authorities did not consistently treat labour violations exhibiting trafficking indicators – such as passport confiscation, wage withholding, recruitment fee charging, deceptive recruitment, contract substitution, or restrictions on movement – as potential trafficking crimes. Instead, many such cases continued to be handled through administrative dispute resolution mechanisms or labour courts, often resulting in fines rather than criminal accountability.
Limitations also persist in the area of victim compensation. As in other Gulf states, UAE law allows for the imposition of fines payable to the state, but it does not provide a dedicated compensation mechanism for victims. In practice, victims must pursue separate civil claims to obtain compensation. The 2025 TIP Report underscored this gap, noting that “officials reported no victims sought compensation via civil suits or were awarded restitution.”
