DFA Welcomes Saudi Arabia’s New Initiative to Abolish Kafala System for Migrant Workers

PASAY CITY 06 November 2020 — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) welcomes Saudi Arabia’s “Labour Relation Initiative” which will abolish the Kingdom’s “Kafala” or sponsorship system.

The new move will allow foreign workers the right to change jobs by transferring their sponsorship from one employer to another, leave and re-enter the country and secure final exit visas without the consent of their employer.

The Philippines has been advocating against the Kafala system in the United Nations and in other international fora. It has officially partnered with Bahrain, one of the first countries to abolish the system, through Head of the Labor Market Regulatory Authority Ausamah Al-Absi, in its labor reform movement through the Flexi Visa System which now allows undocumented/irregular workers to acquire regular immigration status without an employer sponsor.

The Philippines also pioneered the negotiation and international adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) to protect all Filipino migrant workers against all forms of exploitation and abuse, and guarantee decent work, consistent with the President’s express directive that no OFW be a slave to anyone.

In line with this progressive move in the Kingdom, the Philippines also acknowledges recent developments in Qatar as the first country in the Arab Gulf region to allow all migrant workers to change jobs before the end of their contracts without first obtaining their employer’s consent.

Saudi Arabia is one of the Middle East countries with the biggest number of Filipino migrant workers. An estimated 865,121 Filipino migrant workers are deployed in the Kingdom as of December 2019. END