Facing adversity: the socio-economic and cultural barriers encountered by hindu migrant taxi drivers in Saudi Arabia

The System of Kafala and the Rights of Migrant Workers in GCC Countries – With Specific Reference to Saudi Arabia Under the Kafala system, which applies in all Arab countries, migrant workers must attain a work entry visa and residential permit, which is possible only if they are working for a domestic institution or corporation or a citizen of the respective country. Each and every employer is required, based on the Kafala system, to adopt all legal and economic responsibilities for all of the employer's workers during their contractual period. By giving wide-ranging powers and responsibilities unilaterally to employers, the Kafala system subjects workers to abysmal and exploitative working conditions, violence, and human rights abuses. Some of these problems have recently made headlines in the United States and in Europe in connection with the campus being built by New York University in Abu Dhabi. While NYU imposed a code of labor standards on its direct contractual partners, it claimed to have no means of controlling subcontractors. Nor did NYU try very hard, it seems, to verify compliance even by its direct contractual partners.Migrant workers make up at least 30 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia and 49 percent of Saudi Arabia's entire workforce. Employers control Saudi Arabia's Kafala system, in which migrant workers are the weakest link. Studies and international organizations report that foreigners employed in Saudi Arabia have returned home with many complaints. In 2006, Saudi Arabia re-examined all laws including its labor law. This re-examination resulted in abolishing some terms used in labor law, such as the kafala system, but the system remains as is. The new labor law includes many positive changes, but not enough according to the assessment of local and international scholars and observers. In this paper, I will reveal laws, practices and patterns that essentially cause the vulnerability of migrant workers, and I will suggest effective alternative strategies. This paper should contribute to our growing understanding of issues of concern for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries and help to develop specific and necessary legal and institutional responses.

This research explores the topic of labor migration in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states – Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates -- and seeks to determine how the subjugation of migrant laborers is initiated and perpetuated. The kafala (sponsorship) system has played a central role in the rapid economic development in the GCC states. Though it has allowed the Gulf States to obtain the resources necessary to develop both economically and cosmetically, the system has had an array of undesirable byproducts that have significantly altered the texture of Gulf societies. The kafalasystem promotes the rapid influx of migrants to meet the labor demand while simultaneously subjugating this imported population through its lax regulations and exclusion from the legal framework in Gulf States. As a result, the Gulf has witnessed an emergence of multi-tiered societies where locals are situated in the top tier and migrant populations consistently occupy the lowest rungs of society. The kafala system has produced structural inequalities in Gulf States and has resulted in grave human rights abuses against migrant laborers. Today, the effects of the kafala system are visible in every aspect of Gulf society. A case study of Dubai, United Arab Emirates is used to examine how legal norms produce and interact with the lived experiences of South Asian migrant laborers. The case study discusses how the kafala system unfolds in one of the most iconic cities in the world and seeks to articulate the lived experiences that are often omitted from modernization narratives.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. Please check back later for the full article. About four decades ago, the discourse on disasters was largely about natural hazards and their characteristics. The failure of this approach to substantially explain disaster impacts led to a change in paradigm. This new paradigm places its emphasis on the influence of vulnerability or resilience on the resulting impacts of disaster—be they direct or indirect. Disasters triggered by natural hazards have since been perceived as unnatural occurrences brought about by a confluence of societal factors. Economic vulnerability and economic resilience, interacting with the hazard itself and the exposure of populations and economic systems, are considered critical determinants of the resulting disaster impacts. The theoretical conceptualization and empirical measures of vulnerability and resilience remain, however, as subjects of contentions. Some argue that vulnerability and resilience are different expressions that refer to one and the same thing; the former is viewed from a negative standpoint; and the latter, from a positive standpoint. This implies that what measures one, measures the other. Other arguments consider resilience as one of the subcomponents of vulnerability, with the other subcomponents being one or some of the following: sensitivity, susceptibility, fragility, adaptive capacity, and coping capacity. However, what these subcomponents mean and cover are not clear-cut, thereby adding to the complexity of developing appropriate measurement tools. An apparently dominant view is that, while vulnerability and resilience have similar underlying factors, they refer to different things. For instance, economic vulnerability and economic resilience are both shaped by the level of development, quality of development governance, and characteristics of development (widespread inequality, rapid and unplanned urbanization, etc.), yet vulnerability is considered a pre-disaster concern; resilience, a post-disaster concern. Here, vulnerability is taken as that component of disaster risk that explains the varying impacts on elements (people, assets, systems) that have the same level of exposure to a given hazard. Resilience is what enables the exposed elements to withstand, cope, and recover from disaster impacts. Thus, in terms of disaster risk reduction priorities, vulnerability is typically linked to prevention, preparedness, and mitigation; resilience, to rehabilitation, reconstruction, and recovery. To date, the intensified application of economic theory resulted in important advances in concretizing the concepts of economic vulnerability and resilience, as well as in measuring them. Nonetheless, alongside these advances some refinements are needed, including the following: address the overlaps with other dimensions, for instance, to social vulnerability and resilience; apply a systematic method for identifying a plausible set of indicators to capture and measure the distinct economic vulnerability and resilience of each element in different contexts and circumstances; and translate the measures into tools for systematically identifying and prioritizing a set of policies and actions to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience. Overall, the ultimate aim is for a sound and widely accepted set of concepts and measures that can be easily adjusted for practical application in different contexts (e.g., developed and developing countries), levels of assessment and governance (e.g., macro and micro; community, city, province, and country), hazard types (e.g., meteorological and geologic), and elements at risk.

Especially in periods of crises, economists try to explain why some economies suffer negative consequences more strongly than others. In order to explain these differential effects, two economic categories known as economic vulnerability and economic resilience can be used. Hence, the aim of the paper is to undertake a critical reflection on the interrelated categories of economic vulnerability and resilience to shocks. The paper analyses these categories from a theoretical perspective and identifies the factors that shape each of them. It then attempts to measure the economic vulnerability and resilience of selected European countries using two synthetic variables. Based on these, a classification of countries in terms of economic vulnerability and resilience was made. The results achieved provide a good starting point for a more detailed study of the paths of crises and their consequences in individual countries.

While earlier studies have explored the relationship between economic vulnerability and economic resilience, they have repeatedly overlooked the significance of financial vulnerabilities within the economic vulnerability index, and the effects of financial and economic vulnerabilities on economic volatility. An attempt is made in this study to close this research gap by conducting a detailed analysis of the relationship between financial vulnerabilities, economic vulnerability and economic volatility, stressing the significance of tweaking prevailing vulnerability indices to fully encapsulate its multidimensional nature in developing countries. Employing panel data for 142 countries over the 2002 to 2022 period and a robust econometric approach like the Driscoll and Kraay fixed effect method, the study reveals that financial vulnerabilities yield significant coefficients to influence economic volatility, thereby accentuating their significance in the Economic Vulnerability Index. Sub-group analyses reinforce the need for incorporating financial variables in vulnerability investigations. Moreover, the causality tests reveal that all the variables and indices meant to capture the economic and financial vulnerabilities Granger causes economic volatility across the sample. In essence, this study fills a critical gap in existing research by demonstrating, that financial vulnerabilities significantly influence economic volatility, underscoring the imperative of integrating financial variables into vulnerability assessments for policymakers and scholars focusing on sustainable development. This study contributes to a broader understanding of economic vulnerability by highlighting the crucial role of financial vulnerabilities in driving economic volatility, suggesting a fundamental reconsideration of existing vulnerability assessment frameworks for policymakers and researchers focused on sustainable development frameworks. By uncovering the causal relationship between financial vulnerabilities and economic volatility across a diverse set of countries, the findings underscore the imperative of integrating financial factors into vulnerability investigations to enhance resilience and stability in developing economies.

This paper explores the dynamic integration of Islamic Kafala theory and attachment theory within the context of childcare and welfare in Saudi Arabia. Despite the growing recognition of diverse cultural and theoretical frameworks in social work practice, there is very limited research on how specific theories are integrated and applied in childcare, particularly within Islamic contexts. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the application of these theories in enhancing child welfare and social work practices in Saudi Arabia. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the research draws on qualitative data from surveys of child welfare professionals and families engaged in the Kafala system, supplemented by case study analyses in various Muslim countries. The findings reveal that the integration of Islamic Kafala theory and attachment theory offers a culturally sensitive and effective framework for improving childcare practices, promoting the emotional and psychological well-being of children in care. The study highlights practical implications for social workers, suggesting strategies for the successful incorporation of these integrated theories into child welfare practices in Saudi Arabia. It also identifies challenges and limitations within the current system, offering recommendations for policymakers to enhance child welfare services. This research contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge of childcare and welfare, advocating for a more nuanced and culturally informed approach to social work in Saudi Arabia.

The Kafala system (a Labour Sponsorship System), a legal framework for regulating foreign migrant workers through local recruitment agents/agencies, existed in several Arab Nations, including the GCC, Jordan, and Lebanon. A key component of the Kafala system was the hegemony of the middle-person/recruitment agent (Kafeel), whom the government authorised on the grounds of a steady workforce supply. Recently, the system has been severely under attack due to the unjust hegemony of the Kafeel and a violation of workers' human rights. Essentially, the structural snags are responsible for it, as the Ministry of Interior handled the migrants' labour affairs compared to the Labour Ministry, thus excluding migrant workers from various humanitarian domestic workers' laws, further providing space for exploitation to the Kafeel by monopolising the terms and conditions of the worker's recruitment. The Arab Uprising (2011) strengthened the voices of the ordinary people for the protection of individual rights; consequently, the political regimes were found serious about initiating policy steps to reform exploitative pillars of the Kafala system under people’s pressure. Accordingly, Qatar’s monarchy first took the initiative in 2016. Thereafter, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia followed similar steps to an extent. It was assumed that the millions of migrant workers in the Gulf who support the economic growth of the ‘host’ and the ‘origin’ would benefit from these reforms. Recently, several incidences have been observed in Qatar that Kafeel still plays a dominating role in the workers' recruitment process, and the structure of exploitation continues as previously. This research paper aims to critically evaluate the reforms in the Kafala system in Qatar and the reasons for their continuation. The research hypothesis is ‘to tactically silence the people's voices and international criticism the monarchy has implemented titular reforms in the Kafala.’ Methodologically, the research relies on descriptive and analytical methods. However, this research paper will make a literary contribution to literature related to human rights and Gulf studies.

This study describes the hegemony produced by the Saudi Arabian state through the kafala system in the relationship between employers and female migrant domestic workers from Indonesia. The kafala system creates many problems due to the structural dependence between domestic migrant workers and their employers, ranging from heavy workloads and irregular wages to restrictions on access to mobility. Employers as individual sponsors have a large dominance of power so that the working conditions for domestic migrant workers become unbalanced. This study is analyzed using Antonio Gramsci's hegemonic perspective with three indicators of understanding, namely the ruling class, defense of the domination of the ruling class, and the crisis of ruling class hegemony. This study was dissected using a qualitative critical approach. This study indicates that the hegemony in this research phenomenon belongs to a declining level of hegemony characterized by the potential for disintegration hidden beneath the surface. Various restrictive Saudi Arabian regulations hamper the awareness of civil society, which has been gradually awakened. The limitations of civil society on access to participatory democracy have resulted in mass resistance to the Kafala system not coming to the surface.

The Middle East is currently navigating a period of profound geopolitical flux and instability, with 2024 emerging as a year of significant regional transformation. Ongoing conflicts in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon, exacerbated by the dramatic collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024, continue to reshape the political and humanitarian landscape. Recent escalations, such as Israel's "Operation Rising Lion" targeting Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, underscore the persistent risk of broader regional conflict. This volatility poses a direct threat to the stability of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, given their critical energy infrastructure, vital shipping lanes, and the presence of U.S. military bases, all of which risk being drawn into any wider conflagration. In response, GCC states have pragmatically pursued de-escalation and rapprochement, including with Iran, and are increasingly adopting a non-aligned stance in global geopolitics to safeguard their economic survival and regional security. Amidst this geopolitical backdrop, the GCC countries host a substantial, yet often under-recognized, population of individuals displaced from war-torn nations. These populations, primarily originating from Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan, have largely entered GCC states under labor migration frameworks, such as the Kafala system, rather than through formal refugee status. Data indicates that Saudi Arabia alone hosted approximately 745,580 Syrians in 2017, while the UAE had 50,463, Kuwait 142,000, and Qatar 12,320. Yemeni emigrants in 2019 included 750,919 in Saudi Arabia, 202,574 in the UAE, 68,962 in Kuwait, and 35,574 in Qatar. The UAE hosts around 300,000 Afghans, and Saudi Arabia 132,282. Saudi Arabia is also a top destination for Sudanese emigrants. These displaced individuals, while contributing significantly to GCC economies, face profound vulnerabilities, including limited social protection, precarious legal status, and inadequate access to essential services. A critical gap exists in comprehensive life insurance and social protection for these vulnerable groups. Despite their vital economic contributions, migrant workers, including those displaced, often lack robust social safety nets, particularly coverage beyond work-related injuries. The Kafala system exacerbates this precarity by tying legal residency to employers, severely limiting workers' mobility and their practical access to services and legal recourse. Existing life insurance schemes for expatriates are frequently limited, expensive, or not tailored to the transient and vulnerable nature of many displaced populations. For instance, natural death, a common cause of mortality among blue-collar workers, is often not covered by mandatory employer insurance. Keywords: Geo Pool Insure, Geo- Political Risk, Geopolitical Crucible, Stability

In this paper, economic vulnerability is defined as the exposure of an economy to exogenous shocks, arising out of economic openness, while economic resilience is defined as the policy-induced ability of an economy to withstand or recover from the effects of such shocks. The paper briefly reviews the work already carried out on economic vulnerability and extends the research towards the development of a conceptual and methodological framework for the definition and measurement of economic resilience. Towards this end, the paper proposes an index of economic resilience gauging the adequacy of policy in four broad areas, namely macroeconomic stability, microeconomic market efficiency, good governance and social development. The analysis of economic resilience explains how small economies can attain a relatively high level of gross domestic product per capita if they adopt appropriate policy stances. In other words, the relatively good economic performance of a number of small states is not because, but in spite of, their small size and inherent economic vulnerability. The results of this study can be used as a tool towards the formulation of policies aimed at overcoming the adverse consequences of economic vulnerability.

This paper raises issues pertaining to prevalent claims of human trafficking and forced labour under the kafala migrant system, a migrant sponsorship system used by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries which includes the following: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The conceptualization of human trafficking and migrant labour fits into the conceptual mode of slavery and enslaved labour of racialised bodies. It can be best understood through an anti-racist and anti-colonial framework. This article explores racial disposability of brown bodies under systems of debt labour, as brown bodies have been historically constructed and conceptualized as mere labour commodities, and assigned to spaces of degenerous work. Drawing connections from the Black-White paradigm and the saliency of Black skin as racialised bodies, this article argues that the saliency of brown skin has been historically produced and intertwined with notions of bondage and enslaved labour, as a result of brown skins positionality in Black-White paradigm constitutes brown bodies as racialised. Anti-racist theorizing found in this paper led to the tracing of the inextricably linked narratives of human trafficking under the British’s Indian Indentureship system and the kafala system.

Ann Saudi Med 2013 September-October www.annsaudimed.net 427 The emergence of a novel human coronavirus recently renamed the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) from the Arabian Peninsula has created global alarm because it is the causative agent of a severe and frequently fatal acute respiratory illness (SARI) resembling the illness caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS-CoV).1-4 The case fatality rate (CFR) in patients infected with MERS-CoV is high—estimated at 43% in 147 patients reported so far by World Health Organization (WHO).3 This rate is higher than that of SARS—estimated at 15%, and is strongly ageand sex-dependent.4 Although the source of virus in patients with sporadic infection remains unknown, it appears likely to be some species of animal.4,5 Clear evidence of limited human-to-human transmission of MERS-CoV has now been documented in several case clusters, including particularly family members and patients in health care facilities,6-8 but all such clusters have, at least thus far, been limited in extent. However, a real concern persists that the virus will adapt to interhuman transmission and switch from an aborted epidemic to a pandemic similar to the SARS-CoV epidemic in 2003–2004. MERS-CoV is transmitted through droplets and contact. In the case of invasive respiratory procedures, MERS-CoV is transmitted through airborne route.2 Early diagnosis and strict implementation of the core components for infection prevention and control programs are crucial for preventing epidemic amplification.2 In the absence of an effective vaccine and a specific antiviral treatment, there is an urgent need to rapidly identify potential therapeutics.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to revise, update and extend the economic vulnerability and economic resilience indices, where economic vulnerability is associated with inherent exposure to external shocks and economic resilience with policies that enable a country to minimize or withstand the negative effects of such shocks. This study also proposes a revised vulnerability/resilience framework to assess the risk of a country being harmed by external economic shocks. Design/methodology/approach The methodology used in the study involves defining economic vulnerability in terms of inherent features of an economy and defining economic resilience in terms of policy-induced changes, and then devising measureable indices to measure such vulnerability and resilience across countries. The exercise required the examination of various global indices to assess their suitability, in terms of relevance and country coverage, for measuring the vulnerability index and the resilience index and the components of the two indices. Findings The main finding of the study is that a number highly vulnerable states, including economically successful small island economies, emerged with high resilience scores, suggesting that they adopt policies that enable them to withstand the harmful effects of external shocks. This possibly explains why these states register relatively high GDP per capita, in spite of their high exposure to shocks. On the other hand, a number of countries, mostly large and poor developing countries, that are not highly exposed to external shocks due to their limited dependence on external trade, emerged with a low degree of policy-induced economic resilience. Research limitations/implications The study utilized global indicators which sometimes had missing data and these had to be filled in using approximations based on assumptions, and alternative assumption could have produced a different approximations. In addition the classification of countries in terms of the vulnerability and resilience nexus depended highly on many underpinning assumptions, including the definitions and the measurement of the components, the weighting schemes and the thresholds used. It is likely that alternative assumptions would yield alternative classifications. Practical implications An important practical implication of this study is that highly economically vulnerable states can reduce the harmful effects of external economic shocks if they adopt policies that lead to resilience building. On the other hand, countries that are not highly exposed to external shocks, can render themselves economically unstable due to their weak economic, social and environmental governance. Social implications This study considers social development and cohesion as one of the pillars of resilience building. The implication of this approach is that social governance, leading to improvements in the education and health of the population could reduce the harm arising from a country’s exposure to external shocks. This is because social governance affects the extent to which relations within a society are properly developed, enabling an effective functioning of the economic apparatus without the hindrance of civil unrest. Originality/value This study has extended previous work on the vulnerability and resilience framework, to include almost all countries of the world, using updated data, and has revised the resilience index to include environmental governance. It has also redefined market flexibility to allow for the downsides of excessive financial riskiness. The revision of vulnerability and resilience indices in the light of new data and their interaction showed more convincingly that economies that are highly economically vulnerable could still register economic success as a result of resilience-conducive policies associated with good economic, political, social and environmental governance.

An analysis on the economic resilience and vulnerability of local economies in the Philippines to hydrometeorological disasters

Reading Nizar Qabbani in Jeddah, and: Every Soul Has Two Bodies, and: There Are Places You Can Hold Your Head High Samiah Haque (bio) Reading Nizar Qabbani in Jeddah Why is love in our city contraband and counterfeit?nizar qabbani, from Diary of an Indifferent Woman We read Nizar Qabbani on your white sheets.Two cups of Turkish coffee between us. You translate a sentence.Behind you is a painting of trees,growing thick and plenty,shrouded in grey-green shadows. What you don’t knowis that in my mothertongue your name meansfreedom. Shadeen. Shadinota is not something easy totaste even here, with your paintingof trees and poems where breastsare spun from two balls of silk. In your skin and hair, in your bloodis that special shield that protectsyou from our dark anonymity here,on streets our hands havecleaned, in villas our hands havebuilt. [End Page 102] Outside, your maid is feeding the cat.On the radio, Fairuzsings about waiting for aletter that will neverarrive. Every Soul Has Two Bodies I never met my father’s kafil,only my father’s anger over the yearsthat piled like layers of bint as sahnonly not as sweet. In the Quran, the word kafaladescribes the adoption of children.In Saudi Arabia, kafala* describesa worker’s owner, as if to own someoneis not a tricky and secret business,like black magic. What does it take tocompress a body’s naturalbeing? A being made of thousands of trees,and the love of a mother. A being with a mind thatcomprehends, and eyes that perceive. My father’s anger was the only weaponto protect him from the dark enchantmentthat told him: [End Page 103] No, you are not an engineer, you are a plumber.No, you cannot buy these sunglasses—they are Christian Diorand Christian Dior is only for us and Americans. No, we don’t care about the thirty years you gave us.We paid you, didn’t we? There Are Places You Can Hold Your Head High You ask: In spite of this all, why do you seek this captivity? The world is largethere are places you can hold your head high. We seek it for the Holy Mosque.This life is hard; to be near the Republic of Godbrings us peace. We seek it for the dailybrotherhood of bathing its marblegrounds. Twenty of us linking arms likesoldiers, with buckets of foamingsoap to erase the tears, sweat, and pissof the believers. [End Page 104] Do you know, all pilgrims,rich and poor, even shurta with theirbatons, in these moments defer to us. We seek it even as our bloodwashes their dead, applies atron their corpses so they smell pleasantfor the ground to receive. We seek it because here, our bloodcan gather in the largest of vegetablemarkets and we learn the trade of amerchant and live this closeto such an abundance of food.You wouldn’t know what it means. We seek it because our mothers,sisters, wives, and daughtersraised us with their hands foryears when we had nothing toofferbut hunger. Here in our mess halls we cook for ourselves,we clean for ourselves, and our women and childrencan have a tv set, a mobile phone,can wear two bangles and earrings of gold. We seek it because even though they tellus we are not citizens,we know what it is to be a citizen. We know what it isto hold our head high. [End Page 105] Samiah Haque Samiah Haque is a Bangladeshi-American Kundiman fellow, raised in Saudi Arabia, and a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program in Poetry. You can find her poetry at Santa Clara Review, Nashville Review, Paper Darts, Cimarron Review, Winter Tangerine Review, and elsewhere. She currently works at the University of Michigan’s Medical School. Footnotes * The kafala system is used to monitor migrant laborers, working primarily in the construction and domestic sectors, in the Middle East. The system requires all...