Uncovering the Kafala System: The Hidden Path to Poverty

By: Gabrielle Sanchez

New air. Foreign land. Is this a path to a better life? Or a turn for the worst? 

Sadly, for those like Halima Ubpah, this path  left her empty-handed: passport seized, locked up and forced to work under abusive working conditions. 

Her home had now become a prison; the Kafala system became a path to poverty.

 Halima came to Lebanon in 2007 in hopes of lifting her husband and three daughters out of abject poverty. Out of desperation, she agreed to work under the Kafala sponsorship system, which promised a stable income that she could send to her family in Cotobato in the southern Philippines. Appallingly, she had to endure physical abuse, isolation and as she worked as a domestic worker for Ibtissam Alsaadi- where she was constantly beaten, starved and trapped. 

Hence, this poses a dire question– how many more impoverished families are willing to endure such abuse to escape poverty? 

250,000, like Halima, are also suffering under this oppressive system, which violate their human rights and strip them of their basic dignity. This system is directly linked to poverty, since their agencies are known to specifically target impoverished areas and manipulate locals into agreeing to work abroad as domestic helpers. 

These are one of the many poverty traps that are fuelled by the desperation of low-income families. Once they entice them with spurious contracts, promising a generous salary and financial security, they unhinge their jaws and ensnare them within endless debts and legal fees that leave them helpless. 

Many fall into the hands of the government's flawed migrant laws, and are confronted with an unrelenting, pernicious fist that shuns them into oppressive systems like these, in countries such as Lebanon and Qatar. Government laws yield the power to shut out families, who were promised a new hope and a new beginning, and driving them into informal and abusive jobs; inevitably leading them into the very poverty they were fleeing to avoid.

Yet perhaps the power for change does not only lay on the government and large, multi-billion companies- but us.

By spreading awareness of these poverty traps, we can expose the sinister schemes that target those in poverty, and lighten the path for a better society.

Works Cited

GOLLE, Jean-Pierre. The Contribution of NGOs to the Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe. 2007, rm.coe.int/16802f5eb5.

“Migration a Journey into Poverty.” Www.caritas.eu, 1 June 2006, www.caritas.eu/migration-journey-poverty/. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Rak, Patrick. “Modern Day Slavery: The Kafala System in Lebanon.” Harvard International Review, 21 Dec. 2020, hir.harvard.edu/modern-day-slavery-the-kafala-system-in-lebanon/.

Uprety, Dipendra, and Priya Subedi. “Halima: 10 Years in Slavery to Ibtissam Alsaadi - This Is Lebanon.” Https://Thisislebanon.site/, thisislebanon.news/case-of-kafala-abuse/halima-10-years-in-slavery-to-ibtissam-saade/?ref=hir.harvard.edu. Accessed 26 July 2024.