Kuwait pledges to scrap sponsorship system

Kuwait City: An alternative to the sponsor system is being seriously looked into as a new state policy, international labour officials say.

Thabet Al Haroon, a representative of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Kuwait told Gulf News on Wednesday that Kuwait's current sponsor system has been criticised since the 1980s but the country "is now taking serious steps to abolish this system".

Mohammad Al Kandari, undersecretary of Kuwait's Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, told the state-run agency, KUNA, earlier this week that the ministry has already begun to consider a mechanism to end the sponsor system and that the old system would be scrapped within 15 months. He added that the new system will be adopted in a way that will fulfill international requirements, without providing further details.

Commenting on this statement which he described as "good news", Al Haroon pointed out that the organisation has presented the government with an alternative system to safeguard employers' rights as well as the employee's. "A system based on contracts rather than sponsorship is what the organisation suggests."

Laila Ali is a journalist based in Kuwait.