In the U.A.E., as elsewhere in the region, the kafala system ties migrant workers to individual employers who act as their visa sponsors, and restricts migrant workers’ abilities to change employers. The kafala system and domestic workers’ exclusion from protections under labor law work in tandem to make these women extremely vulnerable to abuse. But the similar plight of migrant workers under U.S. guestworker programs has not garnered such attention...It’s an American kafala system—we just don’t call it that. In the U.S., the practice goes by the bureaucratic name of “non-portability”—the job is not “portable” to another employer. But does it lead to the kinds of abuses rife in the repressive U.A.E.? Perhaps not of the same magnitude. But it does engender abuses of the same class.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:27:19 +0000
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