Kuwait and Qatar should both strengthen their laws to ban the payment of recruitment fees by all migrant workers, irrespective of where that payment is made, and should significantly increase their focus on stamping out abusive recruitment practices, FairSquare said today in a 162 page report into recruitment of migrant workers in Nepal, Kuwait and Qatar...

Kuwait, the report said, should also ensure that its efforts to increase the number of Kuwaiti nationals in the workforce, known as Kuwaitisation, is carried out in a way which protects, rather than undermines the human rights of migrant workers, and should take measures to address xenophobia and discrimination against migrant workers. The report commended Kuwait’s explicit and comprehensive prohibition of recruitment fee payment in the Domestic Workers Law...

FairSquare also recommended that the Qatari authorities proactively investigate cases of “kickback” payments by origin country agencies to Qatar employers or their representatives in exchange for jobs. The report welcomed Qatar’s introduction of legislative reforms between 2018 and 2020 removing legal impediments on workers’ job mobility and ability to return home, while noting the critical importance of effective enforcement, and its efforts to reduce the prevalence of workers’ terms and conditions being altered (or “substituted”), through the establishment of Qatar Visa Centers (QVCs).