The parliamentary Human Resources Committee on Monday discussed seven bills to handle the issue of reframing the demographics of Kuwait, and approved the recommendation for the government to outline a quota system between the expatriate workers and citizens. In addition, the committee also agreed on the need to specify the number of expatriates of every nationality otherwise, nothing will change.
While quotas are being discussed, the committee also agreed that domestic workers would not be included in the quota system for every nationality with the aim to keep the Kuwaiti family stable, and ensure there was no price increase in the cost of recruiting domestic workers from abroad.
The government also made the request for the exemption of workers under governmental contracts from the abovementioned regulations, for which the committee gave two conditions pending its approval. First, the workers must leave as soon as the project is finished. Second, the workers’ residency visa is non-transferable. The committee also agreed with the government to ban the recruitment of workers among the nationalities that exceed the specified percentage from the quota system.
The ban could be lifted once the number of workers of a particular nationality is lower than the limit.
Regarding penalties for visa trading and human trafficking, the committee agreed to toughen consequences including handing out harsher penalties such as imprisonment and fines for those who help bring in expatriate workers exceeding the quota set by the government.
Those who engage in visa trading will also suffer these penalties as well as whoever urges any concerned employee to sign forms illegally.
The committee discussed with the Ministry of Justice for opinions about such penalties. The committee is biding its time for the final touches on the relevant report, which will then be referred to the Assembly before the end of August.