Kuwait Human Rights report about status of migrants

Kuwait Society for Human Rights (KSHR) has reported on the Annual Third Observation about the Status of Migrant Workers in the State of Kuwait. The prominent features of the reports are as follows.

The most prominent decisions issued during the reporting period are Ministerial Resolution No. 22 of 2022 issued on April 21 regarding the executive regulations of Law No. 68 of 2015.
Regarding domestic workers, and with the issuance of this decision, Ministerial Resolution No. (2194/2016), which was regulating the same law and all decisions and circulars that violate the provisions of the new regulation, was cancelled, while work will remain in force with decisions and circulars that do not violate the provisions of the new regulation.

The offices of practicing the profession of recruiting domestic workers from abroad, and the regulations prevented the deduction of any amount from the worker’s financial dues, while it fined the employer who was late in paying the wages of his domestic worker on the seventh day of the due date, at an amount of 10 dinars for each month added to his monthly wage, in addition to that overtime work hours do not exceed two hours per day and the worker is entitled to half a day’s wages.

On April 25, and based on the cabinet’s instructions regarding governance and the expansion of the use of automated systems, the Ministry of Interior and the Public Authority for Manpower launched a service to pay and print the electronic [1] civil work entry visa through the companies’ platform on the official website of the ministry [2] and in conjunction with it, the issuance of paper entry visas through the General Authority was stopped.

The authority has administrative decision No. (34) of 2022 amending Article 37 of Administrative Resolution No. (27) regarding the issuance of a list of rules and procedures for granting work permits, during which the text of Article No. (37) of the list of rules and procedures for issuing work permits was amended . It allowed to renew or transfer work permits within the private sector for a period of one year for expatriate workers who have reached the age of sixty years and above who hold a general secondary school certificate or less and its equivalent certificates in accordance with the decisions in force with the authority

Among the measures taken by the Public Authority for Manpower is the launch of a new service through the People’s Sahel application[5] for government transactions, whereby it has become possible to inquire about the date of the session for a labor complaint that is included in the list of (inquiry services), while the work period has been extended with the mechanism of issuing work permits for recruits with an entry visa for visits.