Theresa M. Dantes signed a contract with an employment agency in the Philippines...to work as a housemaid for $400 a month [in Qatar]...[instead], her employer...pay her only $25...she was fed one meal a day...She worked seven days a week...Under kafala, the system that governs the working lives of every foreigner employed in Qatar, Ms. Dantes could not resign without her employer’s permission...Some 1.2 million foreign workers — mostly poor Asians from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines — make up 94 percent of the labor force in Qatar, an absolute monarchy...Foreign workers in Qatar, which has no minimum-wage law, have little recourse if they are offered wages lower than they expected, and the high fees the personnel agencies charge give employers no incentive to free their employees from their obligations.