In Kuwait, domestic workers play an important role in society by contributing to the country’s wealth and lifestyle. The country with a population of only 1.3 million citizens, employs more than 660,000 domestic workers, representing one domestic worker for every two Kuwaiti citizens, holding the second largest number of domestic workers in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia.

Globally, domestic workers, a vast majority of whom are women and girls, are excluded from basic labor laws denying them protection of their most basic human rights. This exclusion, together with gender discrimination in social and legal norms, has led to a marginalized, unprotected and vulnerable society. Domestic workers are in fact amongst the least protected within the labor force.

For the last decade, international organizations have documented a series of human rights abuses against domestic workers in the Middle East, described by some as a type of modern day slavery.  In extreme cases these include long working hours with no days off, unpaid wages, confiscation of their passports, forced confinement, food deprivation, physical and sexual abuse and forced labor including debt bondage and trafficking. Despite Kuwait’s efforts to prevent these cases of human and labour rights abuses, incidents of abuse continue to surface due to the inefficient regulatory framework for domestic work, especially the ineffective regulation of employment agencies. Agencies recruit women and girls to work as domestic workers often without disclosing the details of the position, such as the extent of working hours, the work conditions, applicable rights and duties or even the contract length. Also, they charge high fees for the recruitment (which is illegal because Kuwaiti law mandates the sponsor to pay all fees) and ask workers to sign contracts in Arabic. This lack of transparency also has potentially negative effects on Kuwaiti families because such formation about the workers’ experience, religion or age is often false and may lead to potential conflicts at home. The absence of implementation of Kuwaiti laws and regulative standards for agencies has resulted in numerous cases of abuse and exploitation of domestic workers as well as Kuwaiti families being misled. The supply (domestic workers), as well as the vast majority of the demand side (Kuwaiti families) do not want this, therefore a goal-oriented and effective reform of the recruiting process is pivotal to prevent further abuse and lack of transparency in the hiring stages.

Project 189 works to protect and promote the rights of domestic workers through empowerment and through the creation of new practices that effectively will ensure, promote and protect the fundamental rights of domestic workers. At the same time, Project 189 helps concerned Kuwaiti families to be able to make a more transparent and informed decision.