Tricked and Trapped: Human Trafficking in the Middle East, ‎pdf 4.1 MB

agency is found to have committed gross violations of the labour law, 12 the
Government shall revoke its licence immediately and shut it down. 13 In
Kuwait, the standard contract requires any person sponsoring a domestic
worker to pay the worker’s travel costs and the associated fees of the
recruitment agency. 14 Also, a ministerial order of 2010 stipulates that the
employment agency is prohibited from receiving any remuneration from the
domestic worker. 15 In Lebanon, a ministerial decision of 2011 states that the
owners of placement offices are prohibited from receiving direct or indirect
fees from domestic workers, on penalty of having their licences revoked. 16
PEAs in the UAE are likewise forbidden to receive any payment or fees from
workers, and are required to refund to the worker any amounts he or she may
have paid for the recruitment process. 17
In reality, this international norm is often ignored. An owner of a PEA based
in Kuwait explained that a “big percentage of recruitment offices outside
Kuwait take money from the domestic worker. The domestic worker has to
pay for issuing the passport, medical tests, training, if any in the country, and
other documents.” 18 Such practices violate Kuwait’s PEA regulation of 2010. 19
12
These violations include recruiting workers illegally or using forged papers; recruiting
workers who are under the legal age of employment; employing workers in jobs
other than domestic work or as labourers, or forcing them to work for other house
owners where they are not authorized to work; economic exploitation of workers and
confiscation of all of part of their wages; assaulting workers physically or sexually,
abusing them or facilitating such practices; transferring workers illegally to other
countries.
13
Additional instructions issued in 2010 further stipulate the need to restrain the creation
of more private recruitment agencies. These rules require that such agencies must be
established as partnerships (previously they could be individually owned); must be
owned by partners who are Jordanian, aged at least 25, without a criminal record,
and are not owners of travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, or massage or beauty salons;
must have a minimum starting capital of 50,000 Jordanian dinar (JOD) (previously
no starting capital was required); must submit a bank guarantee of 100,000 JOD
(previously only 50,000 JOD was required); and are subject to warnings, fines,
suspension for up to six months, or closure by the Minister if found to have violated
any of these requirements.
14
Kuwait, Standard recruitment and employment contract for domestic workers, 2010,
art. 5(5).
15
Kuwait, Ministry of Interior, Order No. 1182, 2010, art. 11 (2).
16
Lebanon, Ministerial Decree No. 1/1, 2011, art. 15, stipulates that "owners of
placement offices are prohibited from receiving any direct or indirect fees from the foreign
female workers, under the penalty of revoking their licences”.
17
UAE, Ministry of Labour, Ordinance No. 1283 regulating the work of private
employment agencies, 23 Dec. 2010, art. 6 (b).
18
Interview with an owner of a private recruitment agency, Kuwait, 27 Mar. 2012.
19
“If the licensed party (the office) receives from the domestic worker or similar categories
of persons any remuneration in exchange for supply or employment, the labour supply
office shall be abolished” (Kuwait, Ministerial Resolution No. 1182, 2010, amending
some provisions of Order No. 617, 1992, for organizing rules and procedures to obtain
licenses for private domestic workers’ offices, art. 11).
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