Between me and you — ‘travel ban’ on expatriates, a step in the wrong direction

By Hamad Al-Hamad
Al-Rai newspaper columnist

A few days ago, the Public Authority for Manpower issued a decision that stunned me. It stated that expatriates working in the private sector may not travel without the prior approval and consent of their employers.

Honestly speaking, I find this decision to be an unacceptable intrusion into private sector operations, and I seriously question its legal validity. To me, it is a straightforward restriction on the freedom of movement for expatriates.

This decision brought to mind a story from the mid-1990s, when a Canadian expatriate joined a Kuwaiti bank and firmly refused to hand over his passport for “safekeeping.”

He insisted that his passport was private property. He took his case to court, and the court ruled in his favor, declaring the practice of retaining passports illegal.

Following that verdict, the financial institutions — particularly banks — complied with the ruling and stopped holding on to employees’ passports.

The new decision lumps all expatriates together, without recognizing the vast differences among them. In Kuwait, expatriates vary widely — there are foreign bank managers whose salaries exceed 10,000 dinars, and there are laborers and cleaners earning just 100 dinars a month.

There are also expatriates who co-own companies with Kuwaitis and sponsor their own residencies. Should someone like that need their partner’s permission every time they want to travel? I find that completely unworkable.

Having worked in the banking sector, I’ve seen how many expatriates lead dual lives. Many of them — Americans, Europeans, wealthy Indians, and other Arabs — hold senior positions in the private sector.

While they work in Kuwait, they often live their personal lives elsewhere. Every weekend, some of them catch flights to Bahrain or Dubai to enjoy two days of personal freedom, living in ways aligned with their own customs and traditions — freedoms that are sometimes restricted in Kuwait.

Another flawed assumption behind this decision is that expatriates travel only once every two years. That couldn’t be far from the truth. Many expatriates represent their companies at international exhibitions, sign deals abroad, or participate in global conferences. Restricting their movement disrupts not just their lives, but the operations of their institutions.

What concerns me most is that, while international organizations have for years urged Kuwait and other Gulf countries to abolish the sponsorship system, we continue to issue decisions that move us in the opposite direction. These measures complicate the business environment — an environment already struggling and in desperate need of revitalization.

I can’t help but imagine a chaotic scene in a private company just before Eid holidays, which often last a week. Picture a department manager glued to his phone, constantly checking the “Sahel” app, trying to approve the travel requests of dozens of employees. And I wonder — can the government really handle the burden of monitoring, processing, and following up on all this?

What surprised me even more was a Kuwaiti official’s justification for the decision: to combat residency trafficking.

That logic reminded me of the late Abu Muhammad, who once said that banning marriage could solve the divorce problem! How does preventing expatriates from traveling solve the issue of residency trafficking — when the main perpetrators of that system are often citizens?

Let’s be honest: restricting an expatriate’s ability to travel without employer permission won’t curb residency fraud. It will only further burden an already stretched private sector and send the wrong message to the international community. It’s time for reforms — not restrictions.