A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service".
A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
Prostitution is illegal in Nepal. The Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act, 2064, Act Number 5 of the Year 2064 (2008), criminalises prostitution and living of the earnings of prostitution by including it in the definition of human trafficking. UNAIDS estimate there to be 67,300 prostitutes in the country.
Migrant domestic workers are any persons "moving to another country or region to better their material or social conditions and improve the prospect for themselves or their family," engaged in a work relationship performing "in or for a household or households."
Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong are domestic workers employed by Hongkongers, typically families. Comprising five percent of Hong Kong's population, about 98.5% of them are women. In 2019, there were 400,000 foreign domestic helpers in the territory. Required by law to live in their employer's residence, they perform household tasks such as cooking, serving, cleaning, dishwashing and child care.
The status of women in Nepal has varied throughout history. In the early 1990s, like in some other Asian countries, women in Nepal were generally subordinate to men in virtually every aspect of life. Historically, Nepal has been a predominantly patriarchal society where women are generally subordinate to men. Men were considered to be the leader of the family and superior to women. Also, social norms and values were biased in favor of men. This strong bias in favor of sons in society meant that daughters were discriminated against from birth and did not have equal opportunities to achieve all aspects of development. Daughters were deprived of many privileges, including rights, education, healthcare, parental property rights, social status, last rites of dead parents, and were thought to be other's property and liabilities. In the past century, there has been a dramatic positive change in the role and status of women in Nepal, reducing gender inequality. While the 1990 Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights to all citizens without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, caste, religion, or sex, the modernization of society, along with increased education of the general population, have also played an important role in promoting gender equality. The roles of women have changed in various ways in the modern Nepalese society.
Kuwait ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in May 2006.
Migrant workers in Kuwait constitute a significant proportion of the population.
In 2009 Qatar was a transit and destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and, to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution. Men and women from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and China voluntarily travelled to Qatar as laborers and domestic servants, but some subsequently faced conditions indicative of involuntary servitude. These conditions included threats of serious physical or financial harm; job switching; the withholding of pay; charging workers for benefits for which the employer is responsible; restrictions on freedom of movement, including the confiscation of passports and travel documents and the withholding of exit permits; arbitrary detention; threats of legal action and deportation; false charges; and physical, mental, and sexual abuse. In some cases, arriving migrant workers found that the terms of employment in Qatar were wholly different from those they agreed to in their home countries. Individuals employed as domestic servants were particularly vulnerable to trafficking since they are not covered under the provisions of the labor law. A small number of foreign workers transited Qatar and were forced to work on farms in Saudi Arabia. Qatar was also a destination for women who migrated and became involved in prostitution, but the extent to which these women were subjected to forced prostitution is unknown. Children have been used in Qatar and other Gulf countries as camel jockies. Most children are trafficked from Africa and South Asia. This practice has ceased in most areas though. Workers have been forced to work in bad conditions; their salaries are sometimes withheld.
Malaysia ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in February 2009.
Nepalis in Qatar are migrants from Nepal to Qatar, mostly migrant workers and permanent residents, as well as their locally born descendants. As of May 2017, 400 thousand Nepali Citizens lived in Qatar as migrant workers, Nepal is the second largest expatriate community in Qatar. While there are Nepalese working in the business and administrative sectors of Qatar, most workers from Nepal fall under the umbrella of unskilled labor, and hold jobs in sectors such as construction and landscaping. Many workers from Nepal are hired to work on the construction of stadiums and railways that are being designed for the 2022 FIFA World Cup to be held in Qatar. According to Time Magazine, due to the terrible working conditions in Qatar, a Nepali worker dies every other day.
Nepalis in Saudi Arabia are immigrants from Nepal to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, mostly migrant workers and expatriates. Saudi Arabia has emerged as one of the top destinations for migrant Nepalese laborers. Approximately 215,000 Nepalese laborers, skilled and semi-skilled, work in the country. Most of them belong to the Madhesi race totalling up to 199,757, and the remainder predominantly belong to the Bahun and Chhetri ethnicities.
The kafala system is a system that exists in many Arab countries in the Middle East, including most of the nations on the Arabian Peninsula, which involves binding migrant workers to a specific employer throughout the period of their residence in a country. The same system existed in Israel under the label "binding labour", until that country's supreme court eliminated it in 2006.
Women migrant workers from developing countries engage in paid employment in countries where they are not citizens. While women have traditionally been considered companions to their husbands in the migratory process, most adult migrant women today are employed in their own right. In 2017, of the 168 million migrant workers, over 68 million were women. The increase in proportion of women migrant workers since the early twentieth century is often referred to as the "feminization of migration".
Migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates describe the foreign workers who have moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for work. As a result of the proximity of the UAE to South Asia and a better economy and job opportunities, most of the migrant foreign workers are from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines and Pakistan.
Lebanon has gone through many stages in its absorption of migrant workers, both before and after the Lebanese Civil War. This development has led to multiple problems regarding integration in Lebanese society. The ambiguity of the Kafala system in Lebanon has resulted in migrant domestic workers facing many legal issues and violations to their basic human rights. The government has largely been inactive and ineffective in implementing laws to protect migrant domestic workers but has attempted to manage the situation but to little avail.
Migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council region involves the prevalence of migrant workers in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Together, these six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), established in 1981. The GCC cooperates on issues related to economy and politics, and the subject of migrant workers constitutes a substantial part of the council's collaboration. All of the GCC countries are dependent on migrant labor to bolster and stimulate economic growth and development, as the GCC countries possess an abundance of capital while the domestic labor capacity is low. Although migrant workers in the Persian Gulf region amount to no more than 10% of all migrants worldwide, they constitute a significant part of the populations of their host countries.
The treatment of South Asian labourers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region is an ongoing issue between members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations and the wealthy oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council. The current large number of migrants from South Asia to the Persian Gulf began in the 1960s, when the oil boom in the Gulf Arab countries resulted in migrant labourers. This further increased with the development of large mega-cities. With the growth of megacities of Dubai, Doha and Riyadh, the need for construction labourers grew. Migrants from Bhutan, Nepal,, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives were contracted to develop the mushrooming skyscrapers. Many of these migrants were brought into the GCC under the kafala system, a sponsor-based system used in the GCC, which is seen by many human rights groups as highly exploitative, since their passports are confiscated and they are forced to work in low-level conditions, within cramped living quarters, for a low salary, and sometimes even without their due pay; when exploitation is brought up or exposed by media or the labourers, their employers are rarely punished.
Open chattel slavery existed in Kuwait until 1949. Slavery was formally abolished in Kuwait in 1949. In practice, slavery was not actually abolished as such, but the law no longer recognized it after 1949, which meant that every slave who applied for manumission was guaranteered to be freed. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.
Open slavery existed in Bahrain until the 1930s. Slavery was formally abolished in Bahrain in 1937. Slavery ended earlier in Bahrain than in any other Gulf state, with the exception of Iran and Iraq. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.
