Reports
The Kafala System: Law-Protected Servitude
- Middle East & Africa Team
- 27 February 2026
- Forced Labour, Kafala System, Migrant Workers
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Kafala system, a sponsorship-based migration framework that governs the legal and personal lives of millions of migrant workers across the globe. Although often presented as an administrative tool for managing foreign labour, the system functions in practice as a contemporary form of legally protected servitude.
The report examines the historical origins, legal mechanisms, and human rights consequences of the Kafala system, with a focused case study on Sierra Leone. It explores how Sierra Leonean citizens, particularly women, are recruited into exploitative domestic work arrangements in Middle Eastern countries, where many face passport confiscation, debt bondage, forced labour, abuse, and restricted freedom of movement.
The report further assesses the system against international legal standards, including the ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, and ILO conventions. It concludes by outlining state responsibility and offering recommendations for Sierra Leone, destination countries, civil society, and the international community to strengthen protections, ensure accountability, and dismantle exploitative labour structures.
The report examines the historical origins, legal mechanisms, and human rights consequences of the Kafala system, with a focused case study on Sierra Leone. It explores how Sierra Leonean citizens, particularly women, are recruited into exploitative domestic work arrangements in Middle Eastern countries, where many face passport confiscation, debt bondage, forced labour, abuse, and restricted freedom of movement.
The report further assesses the system against international legal standards, including the ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, and ILO conventions. It concludes by outlining state responsibility and offering recommendations for Sierra Leone, destination countries, civil society, and the international community to strengthen protections, ensure accountability, and dismantle exploitative labour structures.
✨ AI summary
This report examines the Kafala system as a sponsorship-based labour framework that creates severe dependency between migrant workers and employers. It traces the system’s historical development, explains its legal functioning, and highlights criticism from international organisations and NGOs. The report focuses particularly on Sierra Leone, where citizens, especially women, are recruited through deceptive agents and trafficked into domestic servitude in countries such as Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. It identifies widespread abuses including passport confiscation, debt bondage, unpaid labour, sexual violence, lack of food, excessive working hours, and barriers to justice. The report concludes that the Kafala system violates international human rights and labour standards, and calls for stronger enforcement, bilateral labour protections, prosecution of traffickers, survivor reintegration, and international pressure on host states to abolish exploitative sponsorship practices.
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