Slavery in Kuwait
In practice, slavery was not actually abolished as such, but the law no longer recognized it after 1949, which meant that every slave who applied for manumission was guaranteered to be freed.
Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.
From Oman, the slaves were exported to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula and Persia, including the Trucial States, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.
A second route of slave trade existed, with people from both Africa and East Asia, who were smuggled to Jeddah in the Arabian Peninsula in connection to the Muslim pilgrimage, Hajj, to Mecca and Medina.
Victims were tricked to perform the journey willingly in the belief that they were going on the Hajj pilgrimage or employed as servants and then sold upon arrival.
In the 1940s, a third slave trade route was noted, in which Balochis from Balochistan were shipped across the Persian Gulf, many of whom had sold themselves or their children to escape poverty.
Children were kidnapped from Yemen, and girls from Armenia, Georgia and Iraqi Kurdistan where trafficked to the slave market to be sold for marriage.
[11] Non-African female slaves were sold in the Persian Gulf where they were bought for marriage; these were fewer and often Armenian, Georgian, or from Baluchistan and India.
[12] Non-African female slaves were sold in the Persian Gulf where they were bought for marriage; these were fewer and often Armenian, Georgian, or from Baluchistan and India.
[8] In reality, the British reports were deliberately playing down the size of the actual substantial slave trade going on in the region, and refused to allow international inspection.
[22] The British officially reported in the 1930s that slavery in Kuwait was practically nonexistent, despite the common house slaves at this time.
For example, in 2007, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs implemented a decree which prohibited employers from taking their employees’ passports.
[27][28][29][30][31] In 2010, the Kuwaiti Minister of Social Affairs and Labor announced that it would abolish the kafala system, requesting the assistance of the ILO on policy issues related to migrant workers.
[31][32] One major change was the creation of an agency, the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM), which has the sole responsibility for the importation and employment of foreign workers.
[34] However, the new laws did not set a minimum wage requirements, did not allow for the creation of labor unions and did not cover domestic workers.
[38][39] In 2018, Kuwait became involved in a diplomatic crisis with the Philippines, which ended in a May 2018 labor deal which prohibited common practices under the kafala against Filipino migrant workers, including the confiscation of passports and guaranteeing one-day off a week from work.
