Kicking Away the Kafala: Migrant Labor Systems in the Arabian Gulf

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In efforts to diversify their oil-dependent economies, reorient their culture, and cater to their young people’s enthusiasm for soccer, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have invested millions of dollars in the name of soccer. In fact, Qatar and Saudi Arabia both qualified for the 2026 Men’s World Cup in October thanks to the Asian soccer governing body’s implementation of new qualification rule changes, giving each team an important home-field advantage. These rule changes also echo FIFA’s decision to bend its own rules during bidding processes in 2010 and again in 2024, during which countries interested in hosting the World Cup apply and outline plans for infrastructure, security, and commercial aspects. The FIFA council then evaluates the bids based on FIFA regulations and selects an option through a vote: these rule changes allowed FIFA to award Qatar the opportunity to host the 2022 World Cup and Saudi Arabia the opportunity to host the 2034 World Cup. The success of these two Gulf nations in attaining hosting privileges is largely a result of their influence on the FIFA organization and its president, Gianni Infantino. The Qatari government provided Infantino with a luxury villa before the 2022 World Cup and gave him unlimited access to the state-owned private jet. The Saudi government has similarly backed FIFA with millions of dollars, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, has even hosted Infantino on multiple occasions. 

However, when FIFA awarded Saudi Arabia the opportunity to host the 2034 World Cup last December, the soccer organization received backlash from human rights advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. These human rights groups objected to FIFA’s decision, given that Saudi Arabia’s human rights record raises many risks for thousands of migrant workers needed to build infrastructure, particularly stadiums for the soccer matches. FIFA’s recent evaluation of Saudi Arabia, nevertheless, suggested that it was on its path towards reforming its labor system—known as the kafala system— by implementing changes to reduce risk to workers engaged in construction work. Still, a team of international lawyers, including Mark Pieth, Stefan Wehrenburg, and Rodney Dixon, filed a formal complaint against FIFA last May, claiming that the soccer organization is failing to uphold its human rights policy for violations not only related to migrants’ rights but also to violations of freedom of expression and women’s rights. The lawyers’ complaint demanded that FIFA act within the next five years to ensure that basic human rights standards are met. FIFA responded with a letter in which it expressed willingness to collaborate with Saudi Arabia and international labor organizations to set a new standard for worker protection. Ultimately, reports from this fall of wage theft and abuse in Saudi Arabia show that the very conditions of the kafala system exposed during the 2022 Qatar World Cup remain firmly in place, raising urgent questions about FIFA’s decision to reward states that maintain this labor system rather than confront its human rights failures. 

To understand why these abuses persist despite promised reforms, it is essential to examine the kafala system itself. The kafala system is the legal framework that defines the relationship between migrant workers and employers in many of the Gulf states and other countries in the Middle East. This system is a sponsorship program that gives private citizens and companies total control over migrant workers’ employment and immigration status. Because the system falls under the jurisdiction of interior ministries and not labor ministries, workers often have no protection under the host country’s labor laws; thus, migrant laborers are vulnerable to exploitation and face low wages, poor working conditions, and employee abuses. The system also denies them the ability to enter labor disputes or join a union. Furthermore, sponsors have total control over workers’ employment and residency visas, endowing private citizens rather than the state to decide workers’ legal statuses. Workers need permission from their sponsors to transfer jobs, end employment, and exit the host country. Indeed, these migrant workers have little recourse in the face of exploitation, and many critics of the kafala system argue that it facilitates modern slavery. 

Although the kafala system was not originally designed to facilitate exploitation, its evolution over the past century has transformed it into a structure that enables widespread abuse of migrant workers. The kafala system originated from Islamic jurisprudence on legal guardianship, and the more modern system arose in Gulf states to regulate the treatment of foreign workers in the pearl industry and other commercial trades beginning in the early twentieth century. In the 1950s, oil wealth attracted foreign laborers—many from Egypt—to work on infrastructure projects, and sponsors were expected to take good care of their workers, ensuring their safety and well-being. However, due to changes in legislation over the decades, this responsibility became a power imbalance between workers and employers. Today, the system employs cheaper workers from South Asia and Africa who work in construction, domestic, and service industries. Common abuses that are poorly enforced include restricted movement and communications, debt bondage, forced labor, visa trading, and irregular residency status. Racism often magnifies this inhumane treatment for African and South Asian workers, while female workers from all backgrounds face misogyny, sexism, and endure further exploitation, such as sexual abuse. 

Investigations into migrant worker experiences and close coverage of the 2022 Qatar World Cup exposed the horrors of this system to the world and pressured Qatar and its neighbors to implement reforms. In order to secure a coveted job in Qatar, impoverished citizens from Nepal and other countries, such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Sri Lanka, India, and the Philippines, seeking to provide for their families, had to incur debt in order to borrow thousands of dollars to pay extreme fees to recruitment companies, which exceeded the legal limit. An estimated daily average of 2,000 workers left Kathmandu airport from Nepal alone, and by 2022, this mass exodus resulted in nearly one-fourth of Nepal’s population living in a foreign country and caused Nepal’s national income to rely heavily on remittances sent back home. Since 2010, 2,100 Nepalis have arrived home from Qatar in coffins: most reports found that the overall death toll of migrant workers leading up to the 2022 World Cup numbered in the thousands. Heart attacks, unexplained health problems from exposure to extreme, over 100-degree Fahrenheit heat, workplace accidents, and suicide account for a majority of these deaths. Most migrants who did return home died within two years. Due to international criticism resulting from this close media coverage, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have sought to implement reforms as of 2021. Qatar has claimed that it abolished the kafala system entirely and has also instituted a minimum wage, the equivalent of almost three hundred dollars per month. Saudi Arabia, moreover, now allows migrant workers to leave the country without their sponsor’s permission and has introduced a “golden visa” which does not limit workers as much as the kafala system. Still, these reforms are poorly enforced, and many migrant laborers are unaware of their new protections

In short, these reforms enacted by Saudi Arabia must be more extensive and better enforced because flagrant violations of migrant workers’ human rights persist. A recent report from the Human Rights Watch reveals that migrant workers in Saudi Arabia continue to suffer as victims of wage theft. Over 850 workers at Sendan International—a Saudi-based manufacturing and supply company— claimed not to have been paid for over eight months. Those interviewed by reporters shared that their supervisors fed them inedible and insufficient amounts of lentils and rice. A similar report from November reveals that over 600 workers at the Saudi Arabian Baytur Construction Company in Mecca did not receive their salaries for over eight months. These workers staged a strike and took to social media, resulting in numerous arrests. This instance reminds the world that Saudi Arabia is a country that restricts free expression and infringes on other human rights. Until Saudi Arabia implements comprehensive reforms and ensures their enforcement, the persistent abuses under the kafala system not only continue to exploit migrant workers but also cast serious doubt on FIFA’s decision to reward states that perpetuate such human rights violations. 

Luca Raffa is a sophomore at Brown University studying History. He is a writer for Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at luca_raffa@brown.edu.  

Natalia Riley is a junior concentrating in Economics and International and Public Affairs. She is a staff editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at natalia_riley@brown.edu 

Priyanka Nambiar is a sophomore concentrating in Cognitive Neuroscience. She is a staff editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at priyanka_nambiar@brown.edu.