Working & Living Conditions

Bal Krishna Gautam endured two years of humiliation and avoidable illness in Qatar, with no access to a bathroom and spoilt food for lunch. His agonizing tale is an indictment of Gulf labour practices.

The all-pervasive kafala, or sponsorship system, allows Gulf citizens and employers to exercise complete and absolute power over migrant workers. Moving from Saudi to Qatar to Kuwait, Mobeen Ahmed’s story is but one amongst a few million migrant experiences across the GCC region.

A Ugandan maid shares her story of survival in Oman.

In the Gulf, an inaccurate but telling distinction is often made between expatriates and migrants. Asian employees in lower-income jobs are referred to as migrant workers, while those in higher income jobs are referred to as expatriates. Regardless of lexicon, they are all governed by the same set of repressive sponsorship (Kafala) laws. For the purpose of this story, we use ‘expats’ and ‘migrant workers’ interchangeably.

Recognize the work and rights of migrants.