The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday welcomes Saudi Arabia’s initiative to abolish the “Kafala” or sponsorship system.
This is a system used to monitor migrant laborers, working primarily in the construction and domestic sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council member states and a few neighboring countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia’s “Labor Relation Initiative” approve the move to abolish the Kafala, a new move that will allow foreign workers the right to change jobs by transferring their sponsorship from one employer to another, leave and re-enter the country and secure final exit visas without the consent of their employer.
According to the Department of Foreign Affiars (DFA), the Philippines has been advocating against the Kafala system in the United Nations and in other international fora.
Saudi Arabia has officially partnered with Bahrain, one of the first countries to abolish the system, through Head of the Labor Market Regulatory Authority Ausamah Al-Absi, in its labor reform movement through the Flexi Visa System which now allows undocumented/irregular workers to acquire regular immigration status without an employer sponsor.
The Philippines also pioneered the negotiation and international adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) to protect all Filipino migrant workers against all forms of exploitation and abuse, and guarantee decent work, consistent with the President’s express directive that no OFW be a slave to anyone.
In line with this progressive move in the Kingdom, the Philippines also acknowledges recent developments in Qatar as the first country in the Arab Gulf region to allow all migrant workers to change jobs before the end of their contracts without first obtaining their employer’s consent.
Saudi Arabia is one of the Middle East countries with the biggest number of Filipino migrant workers, estimated at 865,121 Filipino migrant workers as of December 2019.
The recruitment sector also welcomes Saudi Arabia’s move to abolish the Kafala “that would improve the working relationship between the worker and his employer and lead to better work environment for millions of expatriate workers in the country,” said recruitment consultant Manny Geslani.
He said under the new labor initiative of the Saudi Ministry Human Resources and Social Development, between 300 to 400 thousand Filipino domestic workers or Household Service Workers are not included in the same labor reform.
He said five professions are not covered under the initiative, such as private driver, home guard, domestic worker, shepherd and gardener or farmer.
He said the new initiative allows enhanced job mobility and regulates the issuance of exit and re-entry visa and final exit visas without the approval of the employer. It applies to all expatriate workers except the five categories mentioned above and includes specific control measures put in place to take into account the rights of both parties of the contractual relationship.
Millions of expatriate workers are expected to benefit from these reform measures.
Saudi Arabia has the largest number of HSWs for decades “and the non-inclusion of the labor reform for our domestic workers will be a blow to the efforts of the government to improve the working conditions of our domestic workers,” Geslani added.
Although there is a Special Labor Agreement signed between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia on the treatment of our domestic workers Geslani said this agreement is not being followed to the letter by some employers in the Middle East.
Under the agreement passports cannot be withheld by their employers, a special bank deposit should be opened on behalf of the worker where their salary will be deposited directly by the employers, reduced working hours and a day-off is provided under the agreement.
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