Kuwait: Efforts to raise awareness on domestic labour rights

Cairo: A Kuwaiti union in charge of domestic labour recruitment agencies and the Philippine embassy in the country have agreed to hold a workshop on labour rights later this month, a leading unionist has said.

The meeting aims at educating officials at the domestic labour recruitment agencies about stipulations of a 2015 law on domestic workers, head of the Kuwaiti Union for Domestic Labour Offices Khalid Al Dakhnan added.

The workshop, planned in two weeks’ time, is designed to explain to owners and employees of the recruitment offices all rules of the related law, he told Al Anba newspaper.

Al Dakhnan made the remarks after talks with the Philippines’ labour consul in Kuwait.

“The Kuwaiti law is one of the best in the world in connection to labour recruitment as it secures unprecedented rights for the domestic workers,” Al Dakhnan said.

He called for setting up a law court to urgently hear domestic labour issues and resolve them in two weeks.

“There is an expected meeting this month between the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry and the Philippine Embassy to discuss the latest developments of a memorandum of understanding and update it if the need arises,” he added without details.

The Philippines enforced a ban on sending new domestic workers to Kuwait back in January 2020, after a Filipino domestic worker was sexually abused and killed by her employer.

Filipino domestic workers started to arrive in Kuwait last May and more labour flew into the country in the following months.