Proactively screen for trafficking indicators among vulnerable populations, including those in government and informal embassy shelters and those arrested for immigration violations or “prostitution” offenses, or those who flee abusive employers and face countercharges, to ensure victims are not inappropriately penalized solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. * Create protection services specifically for male victims, including accommodations, and specify procedures for their access to care. * Ensure unhindered access to the government shelter for all potential victims, including those who self-refer, and disseminate new policy to all officials to ensure potential victims are not denied care. * Fully implement the NRM, including by issuing a directive to execute its use, provide a budget for implementation, and increase training for all relevant officials and NGOs on the mechanism and ensure official guidelines are accessible to all front-line responders to routinely employ these procedures. * Strengthen enforcement of the domestic worker law by increasing access for domestic workers to file a grievance with authorities, increasing inspections of registered and fraudulent recruitment agencies, and improving screening of domestic worker complaints to identify potential labor trafficking cases. * Institute reforms to the employer-based visa system, including allowing all workers to change employers at any time and leave the country without requiring employer approval. * Continue to increase law enforcement efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers, including Kuwaiti citizens and allegedly complicit officials, under the 2013 anti-trafficking law rather than other criminal laws, when applicable. * Increase the number of investigations and prosecutions of employers who illegally confiscate migrant workers’ passports and strengthen penalties for passport confiscation to deter potential future perpetrators. * Strengthen efforts to prosecute allegations of forced labor crimes criminally instead of administratively, and refer cases with trafficking indicators, such as complaints of non-payment of wages, passport confiscation, and restriction of movement, for investigation as potential trafficking crimes. * Implement Article 10 of Law No. 6 of 2010 and issue a resolution eliminating recruitment or placement fees charged to workers and establish penalties for non-compliant agencies and employers who subject workers to such fees. * Strengthen implementation of the Trafficking Committee’s national anti-trafficking strategy. * Expand efforts to raise awareness on existing protections for migrant workers and penalties for traffickers, particularly among vulnerable populations, including domestic workers, as well as employers, company owners, and recruitment agencies.

The government slightly increased law enforcement efforts; however, overall efforts remained inadequate compared to the scale of the problem. The 2013 anti-trafficking law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for offenses involving an adult male victim and up to life imprisonment for those involving an adult female or child victim. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with regard to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. The Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) and the Ministry of Interior (MOI) continued to require all cases of buying and trading of fraudulent visas, withholding of salaries and passports in excess of three months, or forcing individuals into jobs different from those contractually agreed upon be prosecuted under the anti-trafficking law rather than the labor law.

The MOI continued to maintain a specialized trafficking unit and the PPO had prosecutors, investigators, and staff that specialized in handling trafficking cases but also handled other crimes. In 2023, the government investigated 25 trafficking cases, compared with 13 investigations in 2022 and 23 in 2021. Of these 25 investigations, 23 were for labor trafficking, involving 24 suspects, and two were for sex trafficking, involving three suspects. The government reported four labor trafficking investigations initiated in the previous reporting period remained ongoing. Officials initiated prosecution of one labor trafficking case involving five suspects, compared with no prosecutions in 2022. Courts convicted five labor traffickers in one case under the 2013 law and sentenced all five traffickers to three years’ imprisonment. Courts did not convict any traffickers in 2022. In April 2019, the Constitutional Court annulled an article from the 2013 anti-trafficking law that required judges to issue a verdict in trafficking cases, arguing the stipulation undermined judicial independence and precluded judges from exercising discretion. As a result, judges retained broad discretion to defer and delay issuance of verdicts in trafficking cases, as they did in other cases. Although corruption and official complicity in trafficking and trafficking-related crimes was a concern in previous reporting periods, the government did not report any new investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes. In previous reporting periods, some officials allegedly took bribes or overtly sold work permits to illegal labor-recruiting companies or directly to migrant workers, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Between 2017 and 2020, a Kuwaiti diplomat, posted to the Permanent Mission of the State of Kuwait to the UN in New York, and his wife allegedly engaged in criminal violations related to human trafficking. Because of diplomatic immunity, the United States could not commence prosecution, and the Government of Kuwait declined to waive immunity to allow the case to proceed. After the diplomat’s departure from the United States in October 2022, a U.S. court charged the diplomat and his wife with forced labor and related crimes. The Kuwaiti government did not report initiating a prosecution to hold the diplomat accountable for the second consecutive year.

Kuwaiti authorities did not consistently screen cases of labor violations, including egregious cases, for trafficking indicators and therefore did not routinely investigate labor violations for potential trafficking crimes. Companies continued to force workers to pay for visas but not provide legitimate employment – a common and pervasive practice called “visa trading” – rendering the worker without status or legal protections and heightening their vulnerability to trafficking. Although authorities investigated, prosecuted, and convicted visa traders, observers reported the government conflated visa trading and human trafficking. While some cases of visa trading may have initially been prosecuted under the anti-trafficking law, judges usually rendered verdicts under the residency and labor law. Observers continued to report workers were generally hesitant to report trafficking to law enforcement because of a fear of detainment or deportation. If a complaint involved severe abuse, such as physical and sexual assault, authorities transferred the case directly to the PPO. The government did not prosecute some cases of domestic servitude because of a lack of evidence or witness testimony; furthermore, some domestic workers who were victims of abuse, including trafficking, ultimately chose not to move forward with court proceedings because of inadequate government support and prolonged trial periods. One labor-source country embassy reported the PPO dropped some domestic servitude cases because of insufficient evidence collection by the MOI’s Forensic Evidence Department. As a result, the government only prosecuted severe cases of domestic servitude – usually involving significant bodily injury or death – as violations of other criminal laws and only sometimes under the anti-trafficking law as labor trafficking. For example, in the previous reporting period, media reported a Filipino domestic worker was raped, beaten, murdered, set on fire, and buried by her employer’s 17-year-old Kuwaiti son; the 17-year-old confessed to sexually assaulting the domestic worker and murdering her because she was pregnant. Authorities arrested the alleged perpetrator after finding the worker’s buried body in the desert. In September 2023, a court convicted the perpetrator for murder and sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment.

In conjunction with an international organization, Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) officials, including shelter staff, labor inspectors, and officials from the Domestic Workers Department (DWED) participated in a training focused on identifying cases of labor trafficking from labor violations, including interacting with victims identified by labor officials. The PPO, in cooperation with Kuwait’s Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies, provided training on improving prosecutors’ and judges’ understanding of the anti-trafficking law. In conjunction with an international organization, the National Committee provided a workshop for Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff on the role of diplomats in identifying and protecting victims; separately, the MOI coordinated with an international organization to train 75 MOI officers on victim identification as first responders.

The government maintained uneven efforts to protect trafficking victims. The government identified 44 trafficking victims, including two adult female sex trafficking victims, seven female labor trafficking victims and 35 adult male labor trafficking victims, an increase compared with four adult male labor trafficking victims identified during the previous reporting period. The government also identified 76 potential male labor trafficking victims. While PAM referred two women from the government shelter to the MOI after conducting its admission screening process, the MOI did not identify these women as trafficking victims. Separately, PAM’s hotline referred three potential victims to the shelter, but shelter staff did not refer the individuals to MOI because they were ultimately not identified as trafficking victims once admitted into care and screened. Officials referred all nine female trafficking victims to the government-run shelter for vulnerable female migrant workers. The government did not operate a shelter for male victims of trafficking, limiting the services available to the 35 identified and 76 potential male labor trafficking victims. While the government provided the male victims legal assistance, including when providing testimony, it did not provide any additional assistance, such as shelter and psycho-social care. Observers noted in most cases identified male victims sought assistance from their respective embassies or other support groups. As of December 2023, the government had assisted 1,623 vulnerable female migrant workers and 58 children at the shelter, a significant increase compared to 576 during the previous reporting period; the majority of the children were accompanying their guardians, while others were first admitted to the shelter because of parental detention or unavailability, and then later referred to social services. This included 280 vulnerable female domestic workers referred to shelter by the DWED; the other 1,343 vulnerable female workers either self-referred or were referred by their embassies. NGOs and labor-source country embassies reported the majority of those admitted to the shelter were potential labor trafficking victims who had fled poor working conditions, including physical and emotional abuse, excessive hours, delayed payment of wages, and passport confiscation, or desired to return to their respective countries of origin. The shelter employed a screening process to identify and categorize types of abuse and determine whether a resident was a trafficking victim; of the 1,623 women and 58 children admitted into the shelter, the government only identified two potential trafficking victims through this screening process. Given domestic workers’ well-documented vulnerabilities to trafficking, the low number of identified victims through the shelter’s screening process suggests officials had low capacity to adequately identify victims.

The National Committee reportedly worked to implement the NRM to identify and prevent cases of trafficking; the mechanism contained six stages ranging from proactive identification of victims to their safe repatriation. Although front-line officials and investigators continued to follow prescribed procedures regarding victim identification and used the NRM to refer abused workers and potential trafficking victims to the shelter, observers reported officials did not systematically utilize the NRM and most Kuwaiti officials were unaware or did not know how to use the mechanism. The Ministry of Justice did not report efforts to issue a necessary directive to adequately implement the NRM. However, the government reported a portion of 500,000 Kuwaiti dinar (KD) ($1,628,665) was allocated to the anti-trafficking NAP to be used to implement the NRM. The NRM was not publicly available, likely limiting its use for stakeholders outside the government. The government reported front-line officials – including those working in anti-trafficking entities, immigration officials, and detention center staff – employed proactive identification and screening procedures on vulnerable groups, such as undocumented migrant workers – including those who fled their employers or faced “absconding” charges, individuals in commercial sex, and those in detention centers awaiting deportation. The government did not identify any trafficking victims through such mechanisms, likely due to inconsistent implementation of screening procedures, and continued to detain and deport large numbers of migrants. Due to inconsistent implementation of the NRM’s victim identification procedures, authorities likely penalized, including through arrest and deportation some unidentified victims solely for unlawful acts, such as immigration violations, committed as a direct result of being trafficked. For example, media reported the government deported 25,000 foreign workers between January and August 2023, averaging more than 100 deportations daily; most deportations were for residency and labor violations, drug abuse, and “committing acts that harm the country’s security.” Media reported authorities deported 4,300 foreign workers in October 2023 for violating public morals, violating residency and labor laws, including “absconding.”

The government-run shelter received referrals from embassies, NGOs, international organizations, the DWED, the MOI’s anti-trafficking unit, churches, private citizens, and other migrant workers; it reported accepting all referred workers into the shelter. The shelter served as a one-stop facility, providing medical and psycho-social care, food and access to officials from various ministries to facilitate legal and repatriation assistance. International organizations and NGOs continued to have access to victims and reported the shelter assisted workers with repatriation or finding new employment. PAM signed agreements with three civil society organizations (CSOs), which included embedding offices in the shelter to increase access for such organizations to monitor shelter operations and assistance provided to its residents; one agreement also allowed a CSO to provide assistance directly to shelter residents, including medical and psycho-social support. Residents at the shelter had access to cell phones and legal assistance, as well as freedom of movement. Shelters were staffed by supervisors, medical staff, and investigators 24 hours per day.

The government made efforts to address previously reported concerns related to access restrictions for workers seeking entry into the shelter, particularly for workers who had criminal charges against them, such as “absconding.” In June 2023, the government began allowing access to shelter for vulnerable female workers with non-violent criminal charges, including “absconding.” The shelter also dropped an informal policy that limited domestic workers with “absconding” charges filed against them that were less than three months old to a stay of only three days in the shelter, during which PAM shelter staff worked with MOI to get the charges dropped. Experts previously noted this limited amount of time was insufficient to process such cases and remove charges and may have resulted in the detention or deportation of unidentified victims. The government also reported accepting workers with “absconding” charges older than three months into shelter; previously, the shelter did not accept workers in such situations. Given it was not uncommon for sponsors to file counter-grievances, such as “absconding,” against workers who reported abuse, the previous policy may have prevented unidentified trafficking victims from receiving adequate care. According to the Domestic Workers Law (68/15), the government could charge a domestic worker with “absconding” seven days after the employer’s registration of the charge, unless the worker notified the DWED or presented themselves at the government shelter. For domestic workers who did not or were not able to notify the government they had left their employer, the worker was subject to arrest, detention for up to six months, fines, and deportation; deportation was usually accompanied with at least a six-year entry ban from Kuwait. The DWED repatriated 75 domestic workers charged with “absconding.” NGOs and labor-source country embassies also reported increased accessibility for vulnerable workers seeking assistance from the shelter.

From January 2023 to December 2023, the government provided 105,000 KD ($342,020) for domestic worker shelter operations and protection programs for trafficking victims, compared with 35,640 KD ($116,090) in 2022; this amount was the total spent on such initiatives and was dependent on the number of vulnerable workers assisted. Some foreign embassies continued to maintain their own domestic worker shelters and worked with the Kuwaiti government to seek compensation and legal redress for their nationals subjected to exploitative working conditions in the country. A significant number of Filipino domestic workers were transferred from the Embassy of the Philippines’ shelter after the Kuwaiti government’s request to close it; government officials reported the transfer of these workers exponentially increased the number of residents at the government shelter in 2023 compared to previous years. NGOs reported a lack of awareness of the government shelter and its services among domestic workers, noting many workers receiving assistance from their embassies did not know the government shelter existed. International organizations and civil society continued to report allegations that diplomatic staff from other embassies that had informal shelters inappropriately facilitated the employment of workers from these shelters by receiving kickbacks for providing the worker new employment through illegal channels, rendering an unknown number of workers vulnerable to trafficking or re-trafficking. In cooperation with international organizations and foreign embassies, the government could assist victims in obtaining documentation and funding for repatriation; however, one labor-source country embassy reported the government was slow to process exit clearances for foreign nationals seeking repatriation, and, in some cases, other foreign governments funded repatriation of their own nationals.

The risk of penalization, coupled with protracted litigation processes and exorbitantly high legal fees, discouraged workers from appealing to police or other authorities for protection and adequate legal redress for their exploitation. In the case of administrative deportation of vulnerable migrant workers, officials reportedly provided airline tickets and worked to recoup associated costs from accused employers; however, observers noted in cases where authorities arrested workers for immigration violations or other alleged crimes, they quickly deported the workers, and embassy representatives would only become aware of such cases when the Kuwaiti government sought travel documents of workers pending deportation. The government allowed victims residing in its shelter to either change their employers and visa sponsors or be repatriated to their country of origin once their residency status was resolved or pending the resolution of a legal case or unpaid bills, without approval by their former visa sponsor. Once the shelter admitted a victim, employers could not press “absconding” charges. The government did not report deporting those who faced retaliation or retribution in their respective home countries. Rather, the government allowed all trafficking victims to change employers and maintain residency in Kuwait or otherwise request resettlement to a third country; however, most shelter residents chose to be repatriated to their home country. As of December 2023, the government repatriated 1,587 vulnerable migrants to their respective countries of origin; an international organization repatriated seven vulnerable workers, including four trafficking victims. The government reported public prosecutors willingly tried cases on victims’ behalf using their verbal and written statements; however, the government did not have privacy laws to protect victims against potential retribution and often did not provide adequate care for victims throughout the duration of legal proceedings. Nonetheless, the government reported providing the aforementioned 76 male labor trafficking victims legal assistance, including when providing testimony against their traffickers, but did not provide further details. The government reported victims could obtain restitution from defendants in criminal cases and file civil suits against traffickers for damages, but most chose instead to settle their claims and return to their country of origin. DWED collected 4,943 KD ($16,100) in unpaid or delayed wages and financial dues to domestic workers prior to their repatriation.

The government maintained efforts to prevent human trafficking. The National Committee, composed of senior officials and tasked with implementing the government’s anti-trafficking strategy, convened twice. A sub-committee, tasked with developing plans to implement the recommendations of the Committee and liaising with member ministries, also convened twice. The government drafted and finalized a 2023-2028 anti-trafficking NAP and allocated 500,000 KD ($1,628,665) toward its implementation. The National Committee, in collaboration with an international organization, financially supported and conducted various public awareness campaigns targeted toward employers and the general public on trafficking trends, reporting mechanism, and the penalties for trafficking crimes. The government continued to disseminate pamphlets, available in seven languages, to educate migrant workers, including domestic workers, on their rights in airports, embassies, the PAM shelter, and labor-recruitment agencies. The National Committee launched its official website, which included awareness materials and a mechanism to report potential trafficking crimes. The MOI continued to operate a trafficking-specific hotline; for the first time, officials reported identifying five potential cases including an unknown number of potential victims via the hotline and referring them to law enforcement for criminal investigation. In previous reporting periods, officials noted most calls related to labor violations without trafficking indicators.

Although the Private-Sector Labor Law No. 6 of 2010 prohibited employers from recruiting foreign workers unless authorized by PAM, the law did not explicitly prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees. Article 10 of the labor law stated the government “shall issue a resolution setting forth the procedures, documents and fees that shall be paid by the employer”; however, it did not issue such a resolution. Separately, the domestic worker law prohibited employers or recruitment agencies from charging workers recruitment or placement fees. The government reported, in practice, cases where workers paid recruitment fees would be considered fraud under the penal code. Nonetheless, migrant workers were regularly subjected to recruitment fees in their home country and, coupled with Kuwait’s employer-based visa system, many workers were forced to remain in abusive employment situations to pay off debt incurred from illegal recruitment fees. Media reported some migrant workers had paid between 1,500 and 2,000 KD ($4,886 to $6,514) to recruitment agencies for jobs in Kuwait. The PAM continued to regulate foreign-worker recruitment, recruitment agency licensing, and labor relations, including disputes among workers, employers, and recruitment agencies for the private and public sector. In 2023, the PAM continued the Tamkeen program with two international organizations and reported the International Recruitment Integrity System – a voluntary accreditation mechanism to connect employers, employees, and recruiters to promote ethical recruitment – was fully operational.

PAM officials commonly used arbitration, administrative fines, and closure of recruitment firms and companies to resolve most disputes and complaints. If a settlement could not be agreed upon, officials referred the case to the labor courts. The PAM utilized 47 inspectors to conduct 26,096 workplace and recruitment agency inspection visits. The government reported penalizing 12,081 companies for committing labor violations in 2023 and referring 7,896 companies to MOI for further investigation; however, it did not report penalties for violating companies or under what charges it referred companies to law enforcement. As of December 2023, PAM received 14,779 official grievances from foreign migrant workers in the private sector, the most common of which included pay discrepancies, passport confiscation, employer denial of job transfers after the required three years with a visa sponsor, and overtime pay disputes. Of the 14,779 complaints, authorities reported they referred 4,737 complaints to the courts but did not report the outcome of the remaining 10,042. The government did not report if it referred any potential trafficking cases identified from submitted labor cases for criminal investigation under the anti-trafficking law.

The domestic worker law (Law 68/15) guaranteed domestic workers one day off per week, a maximum 12-hour workday with rest, minimum wages paid per month, paid annual leave, end-of-service benefits, and access to file formal grievances at the MOI, among other protections. The 2016 bylaws regulated implementation of this law. The 2016 amendments to the ministerial resolution of the 2010 labor law increased penalties for non-payment of wages, mandated documentation of all paid wages, and required prison time and fines for employers and government officials who failed to adhere to provisions of this law. Authorities continued to apply the amended provisions of the domestic worker law, which required recruitment agencies to build a monetary reserve to adjudicate cases of labor law violations to pay unpaid wages and cover the costs of repatriation. The DWED reported it collected a total of 4,943 KD ($16,100) from employers to pay unpaid or delayed wages back to workers between January and December 2023, compared with 16,050 KD ($52,280) in the previous reporting period. Despite such legal protections, observers reported many domestic workers reported instances of being forced to work longer than 12 hours per day without overtime compensation and received no day off; in addition, domestic workers often reported not receiving compensation during annual leave or receiving end-of-service benefits, all requirements of the domestic worker law. Although the law required DWED, through PAM, to provide domestic workers standardized employment contracts, many workers reported being subjected to contract switching; this included situations where workers arrived in Kuwait expecting to work in the private sector, were presented with a new contract that included a different sponsor than the original work permit, and subsequently forced into domestic servitude. Because working for an individual other than your sponsor was illegal, workers subjected to contract switching were especially vulnerable to trafficking. Observers reported many domestic workers were not aware that a standard contract was required and did not have a copy of their contract in their possession. The government only provided standard contracts in Arabic and English; this may have limited awareness and understanding among domestic workers who did not speak such languages and likely heightened their vulnerability to contract switching and trafficking.

For issuance or renewal of a license for a domestic worker recruitment firm, the DWED required single offices to submit financial deposits of 40,000 KD ($130,293) with a two-year validity and larger companies to present a letter of guarantee worth 100,000 KD ($325,732). The DWED continued to investigate domestic worker recruitment agencies to ensure compliance with the domestic worker law. It also initiated investigations based on grievances filed by domestic workers, employers, recruitment offices and companies, and embassies of labor-source countries. The government arbitrated such grievances either through extrajudicial administrative proceedings or through the labor courts. The DWED could refer suspected trafficking cases to the MOI for further investigation but did not report doing so. From January to December 2023, DWED officials received 2,511 work-related complaints, resolved 1,898 in extrajudicial administrative proceedings, and referred 202 to the labor courts; the government did not report the outcome of the other 411 complaints. Most received complaints were from employers about domestic worker recruitment agencies. As of December 2023, the DWED had conducted 101 inspections of domestic worker recruitment firms that resulted in 116 violations against registered recruitment agencies, which the government subsequently suspended for three to six months. In May 2023, media reported after DWED had conducted inspection campaigns in three governates, 22 recruitment agencies were fined and suspended for six months for committing domestic worker law violations. During these inspections, DWED identified 13 female domestic workers employed at the recruitment agencies and referred them to the government shelter for assistance, including repatriation. The government did not identify the 13 women as trafficking victims and officials did not report referring any of the violating recruitment agencies for criminal investigation or prosecution.

The law did not allow DWED to inspect private homes, which limited the enforcement of the domestic worker law. In addition, NGOs noted limited capacity for DWED to enforce domestic worker protections because of minimal inspectors and investigators who were responsible for handling 800,000 domestic workers. NGOs noted accessibility to the DWED for domestic workers was limited, as there was an expectation a worker needed to physically travel to the department to file a complaint. Domestic workers who did not have the freedom to leave their employer’s home may not have been able to file a complaint with the government against their employer, rendering them vulnerable to further exploitation, including trafficking. The government maintained an online platform for domestic workers to submit complaints, which could make grievance mechanisms more accessible and reportedly allowed the DWED to track recruitment agency inspections and complaints. Observers reported, although such a platform existed, workers experienced challenges in submitting complaints because of language barriers as the platform was only available in Arabic and a lack of awareness of the platform. In addition, the platform required information – including the full name and identification number of their employer – which many workers did not have access to, particularly if they were filing a complaint against their employer.

Although the labor and domestic worker laws prohibited withholding workers’ passports, the practice remained commonplace among visa sponsors and employers of foreign workers. The DWED received 582 complaints of passport confiscation and referred 232 to the labor courts, but did not report how many complaints it resolved by returning the passports to the workers or how many employers it blacklisted for passport confiscation. The PAM received 1,482 complaints of passport confiscation and referred 507 to the labor courts; it did not report how many complaints it resolved through arbitration or if it referred any cases to the MOI for further investigation. The domestic worker law did not specify penalties for passport confiscation; however, the DWED continued to treat the practice as a contractual violation and a violation under the domestic worker law – which imposed penalties that blacklisted an employer for six months, prohibiting the employer from sponsoring new workers, and referring the complaint to the courts. However, the domestic worker law allowed employers to take a worker’s passport with the approval of the domestic worker, which limited the effectiveness of the prohibition. Because the anti-trafficking law did not include an article prohibiting passport confiscation with criminal penalties, instances of this practice remained pervasive in Kuwait and rendered many workers vulnerable to exploitation, specifically trafficking.

In adherence to the labor law regulating employment of domestic workers, the government’s centralized recruitment company, Al-Durra, worked to reduce recruitment costs, curb illegal recruitment fees, provide greater oversight of recruiting practices, hire male domestic workers, and secure labor agreements for female employees. Al-Durra recruited domestic workers primarily from the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka, and only recruited domestic workers from countries with which it had MOUs. Al-Durra reported in cases where a domestic worker suffered abuse or maltreatment from an employer, the agency filed a complaint against the employer and reported the complaint to the “competent authorities.” Other private recruitment agencies also operated in Kuwait, and the government maintained agreements with several other labor-source countries specific to domestic worker recruitment. In January 2024, the Commerce Ministry established maximum employer-paid recruitment fees for agencies to recruit domestic employees at 750 KD ($2,440) for Asian countries and 575 KD ($1,872) for African countries; employers frequently illegally charged a portion of the fee to domestic workers through salary deductions or debt bondage. The government made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts by targeting consumers at places of worship and raising awareness of health risks associated with commercial sex. The government provided anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel.

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims in Kuwait. Men and women migrate primarily from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and other countries in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East to work predominantly in the service, sanitation, construction, transportation, security, hospitality, and domestic service sectors and, more recently, nurses working for medical supply companies, with the vast majority arriving voluntarily. Unskilled laborers and female domestic workers are especially vulnerable to forced labor and physical and sexual abuse as they often have limited access to assistance outside their worksite or employer’s home. Bidoon (stateless residents of Arab heritage) without government-issued identification documents face challenges obtaining lawful employment opportunities and remain vulnerable to trafficking. Observers reported members of the Bidoon community also exploited victims in sex trafficking. In some cases, limited access to assistance is due to the absence of diplomatic representation in Kuwait, especially for undocumented workers who need consular services. As conditions for many remain perilous, numerous labor-source countries, including Bhutan, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, continue to restrict their female nationals from employment in domestic work in Kuwait. The Kuwaiti government’s amnesty campaigns, coupled with the limited number of new domestic worker permits being issued and the outflow of documented and undocumented workers, during the COVID-19 pandemic, caused a domestic worker shortage in Kuwait. Due to such shortages, previous reports stated employers physically prevented their domestic workers from leaving the country or transferring to another employer. The Kuwaiti government has continued to increase its recruitment of domestic workers from African countries – including Ethiopia – through an agreement signed in October 2023. However, many workers continue to circumvent the respective bans by transiting through third countries before arriving in Kuwait. After the murder of a Filipino domestic worker in January 2023, the Government of the Philippines suspended the accreditation of new recruitment agencies and first-time workers who sought employment in Kuwait but did not impose a complete ban on other workers traveling to Kuwait. Murders of Filipino domestic workers in Kuwait occurred in 2018 and 2020 and resulted in temporary bans on domestic workers from the Philippines working in Kuwait. At the close of the current reporting period, the ban remained in place.

Upon arrival, some visa sponsors subject migrants to forced labor, and to a much lesser extent, sex trafficking through the following illegal measures: non-payment of wages, protracted working hours contrary to contractual agreements, deprivation of food, substandard housing, threats or harassment, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as confinement to the workplace and passport confiscation. Although unlawful under Kuwaiti private-sector labor law and the domestic worker law, passport withholding by employers is pervasive in Kuwait and is usually undertaken to prevent a worker from fleeing to another position, exercise control over an employee’s conduct, or compel a worker to remain in a job through coercive conditions that may violate contract terms, such as working long hours without rest days or adequate breaks. Furthermore, many migrant workers pay exorbitant fees to recruiting agents in their countries of origin and/or are coerced into paying labor broker fees in Kuwait, thereby plausibly rendering workers vulnerable to forced labor, including debt bondage. Observers report employers exploit grocery workers in conditions indicative of forced labor. Visa trading continues to be a common manifestation of trafficking in Kuwait. Local media previously reported nursing companies traded residence permits of dozens of nurses without their approval and required the nurses to pay upwards of 4,530 KD ($14,760) to remain in Kuwait. Some illegal labor-recruiting companies facilitate trafficking by using deceptive techniques to bring in migrant workers via unenforceable contracts, fraudulent visas, and nonexistent positions. Some officials allegedly take bribes or overtly sell work permits to illegal labor-recruiting companies or directly to migrant workers. Approximately 300 Cuban government-affiliated medical professionals worked in Kuwait during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of whom returned to Cuba. Government-affiliated Cuban medical professionals who worked in Kuwait may have been forced to work by the Cuban government.

Kuwait’s sponsorship law, which ties a migrant worker’s legal residency and valid immigration status to their employer, restricts workers’ movements and penalizes them for leaving abusive workplaces. Despite a 2016 reform that allows private-sector workers to transfer visa sponsors without employer permission after three years of consecutive service and with three months’ notice to the employer, employers and recruiters are also known to illegally charge workers for transferring a visa or residence permit from one sponsor to another. Given these impediments, workers routinely leave their original sponsors and take other jobs without transferring sponsorship, risking being fined, deported, or blacklisted for falling out of legal residency status, thereby increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Employers increasingly sell workers to other employers on social media and online platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Haraj. Reports indicate an increase of persons searching for and selling residence permits and work permits on social media. In 2023, a domestic worker support organization in Kuwait reported assisting nearly 20 workers who sought assistance after being transferred from one employer to another without their consent; these workers were reportedly posted to their employer’s social media and other websites for the purpose of selling them to a new sponsor. Workers in such situations often leave their employer, losing their status in the country – which is a criminal offense – and increasing their vulnerability to detention, deportation, and trafficking. In addition, traffickers, including recruitment agents, sometimes exploit domestic workers who flee their abusive employers in sex trafficking and threaten to report the worker’s undocumented status to ensure workers will not report the exploitation. After the government’s suspension of family and tourist visit visas, observers report companies sell commercial visit visas under the false promise that workers could easily transfer a commercial visit visa to a work visa. Domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to forced labor inside private homes. Many workers report experiencing work conditions substantially different from those described in the contract. In some cases, officials do not provide workers copies of their contracts, or the contracts are not written in a language they can read.