Lives Tied to Work: Inside the Kafala System 

Across the Middle East, labour migration is a defining demographic reality. An estimated 24 million migrant workers are employed across the region. The majority of them live in the Gulf states, including roughly 11 million in Saudi Arabia, 9 million in the United Arab Emirates, and 2 million in Qatar, forming the backbone of multiple economies. These workers sustain essential sectors ranging from construction and logistics to healthcare, retail, security, agriculture, and domestic work. In some of these countries, migrant workers far outnumber the local population. For instance, in the UAE, almost nine out of 10 residents are migrant workers.

Despite variations between states, the reliance on migrant labour is structural and widespread. Yet this demographic and economic centrality does not translate into social or legal inclusion. On the contrary, labour migrants remain structurally temporary, excluded from citizenship, and dependent on their employers for their legal status. The kafala sponsorship system employed mostly in the Gulf Cooperation Council nations and countries in the Levant (Jordan and Lebanon), sits at the centre of this paradox, transforming a numerical majority into a legally and politically marginalised workforce.  

How does kafala work?   

The kafala system, initially designed to attract non-permanent workers, is a temporary labour migration regime that ties a migrant worker’s residency status to an employer. 

It establishes a tripartite relationship between worker, sponsor, and state – one in which authority over migrants’ legal existence is delegated to private actors. The dependency it creates is built not just into the legal structure itself, but also into customs and practices. A worker’s right to remain in a certain country, change jobs, or leave is often contingent on the sponsor’s consent. Although some reforms have been introduced, the underlying problems persist: mobility is restricted, and the risks of contesting abusive conditions are still present.  

This unbalanced dynamic leads to systemic consequences. Since residency status is tied to employment, leaving an abusive employer could mean losing legal status. For migrant domestic workers, the situation is particularly acute. Frequently excluded from labour law protections and classified as “servants” rather than employees, they occupy a legal grey zone where minimum wage guarantees, working-hour limits, and mechanisms for redress often do not apply.  

The social order of kafala   

Migrant workers are not treated as a homogeneous group within the kafala system, which operates through hierarchies of nationality, race, class, and gender that shape access to rights, mobility, and protection.  

At the top of this hierarchy are expatriates, often originating from OECD countries and employed in sectors such as finance, education, and corporate management. Although subject to sponsorship requirements, they typically benefit from higher wages, greater mobility, and stronger institutional support. The middle tier includes professional and semi-skilled workers from countries like the Philippines and India, as well as elsewhere in the Arab world, working in sectors such as healthcare, retail, and technology.  

At the bottom are low-wage migrant workers from Asia and Africa, concentrated in the construction and domestic labour sectors, where protections are weakest and vulnerability to exploitation is highest. These divisions are also gendered: men are overrepresented in construction, while women make up the majority of domestic workers, often in highly isolated conditions.  

For domestic workers, control often extends beyond wages and hours, with live-in arrangements frequently blurring the boundary between work and private life. This can mean long hours, constant availability, limited privacy, and dependence on employers for permission to leave the house or maintain social ties. Wages and tasks are also frequently structured by racialised assumptions linked to nationality, reproducing hierarchies within the household itself.  

While the legal status of all categories remains tied to sponsorship, their ability to navigate this dependency varies significantly, reflecting wider inequalities.  

Majority without membership   

Periods of crisis expose the structural absence of comprehensive social protection for migrant workers. Existing inequalities tend to deepen with rising anti-migrant discourses, discrimination, and human rights violations, while state protections are often prioritised for citizens.  

The Israeli-American war with Iran has brought renewed attention to these vulnerabilities. Human rights organisations have raised concerns about workers whose legal status remains tied to their employers, limiting their ability to respond independently to rapidly deteriorating conditions. In Lebanon, for instance, domestic workers have been confined or abandoned by employers, at times without access to identity documents, and with limited means to secure evacuation, shelter, or assistance. In Qatar, delivery drivers were excluded from shelters. Moreover, across the Gulf, low-paid migrant workers often face additional barriers to evacuation, including financial constraints and obligations to support families abroad.  

Some employers have provided continued wages or assistance with return, but these cases remain limited. More broadly, crises reveal how quickly legal dependency can translate into precarity: under kafala, a worker’s ability to move and access protection remains contingent on a private relationship.