Kuwait to do away with sponsor system
Kuwait, September 27, 2010
Kuwait will do away with the sponsor system for foreign workers in February, the Al-Rai newspaper has reported, to become the second Gulf country to scrap the system which has come under much fire over the years.
The system, locally known as 'kafeel,' will be stopped when a public authority for the recruitment of foreign workers is established in February.
'This will be our gift to foreign workers on the anniversary of Kuwait's liberation,' from seven months of Iraqi occupation in 1991, the minister said.
The sponsor system, which has been called 'slavery' by human rights activists, requires that all foreign workers must be sponsored by Kuwaiti employers, thus keeping them at the mercy of their bosses.
Kuwait will become the second GCC country to scrap the system after Bahrain, which discontinued the system in 2009.