Sponsor linked to slavery
Kuwait Times, Wednesday December 28, 2005

By Ahmad Al-Sarraf

A sponsor is someone who cares for a person and provides all of their necessary requirements, but in Kuwait or the Gulf the word is linked to slavery! Every expatriate who wishes to enter the country needs either a Kuwaiti individual or a company to sponsor him. They must also sign various 'obedience' documents for an array of government organisations, which means that the responsibility of the citizen for the expat is very limited!

The sponsor system was established to keep expats under the control of their sponsor. The assumption must be that the expat is very smart while legislators must believe the citizen to be very naïve! The goal of this unique system, which I do not believe exists anywhere outside the GCC, is to make the citizen gain financially from the expat and to have his presence in the country directly linked to the Kuwaiti sponsor's wishes and whims.

Efforts were exerted to ease things for certain businessmen and major financial institutes to allow them to 'sponsor' themselves, to give them independence away from Kuwaiti authority for a limited numbers years. Even this arrangement did not last long and was stopped. The sponsor (kafeel) system had and still has a role in making the Kuwaiti looking down on others.

This system is the reason for the tyranny of some citizens when dealing with others and has played a big role in inflating the egos of a large group of people, who think they are better than others, for nothing other than being able to cancel the Iqama (residence) of those working for them anytime they choose. This is particularly true for those doing menial jobs who may be ignorant of the law.

There is no need to mention the thousands of extortion cases and victims of the sponsor system, as well as the tyranny of Iqama traders, along with those who steal money form the innocent and throw them out into the middle of the street without a job or a place to live. Al-Qabas