Nearly 150 Asian expatriates have been rounded up and deported from Kuwait for suspected involvement in trading in housemaids who mostly hailed from Asia.
In line with this development, the MOI, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has intensified its efforts to improve the image of Kuwait in the areas of human rights and anti-trafficking of human beings, and through the help of the General Directorate of Residency Investigation resulted in the monitoring of these gangs which are mostly run by Asian nationals.
150 Expats Deported from Kuwait for Involvement in ‘Maid Trade’
According to authorities, the violators were arrested during raids on suspected houses in the first 10 months of this year within an intensified crackdown on human trafficking, as shared in a report by the Arab Times Online.
As per investigations of the General Directorate of Investigation of Residency, the housemaids of Asian nationalities have reportedly been incited to escape from the sponsors and were then being sold to new sponsors for money.
These reports led to the offices of fake domestic workers which were allegedly run by syndicates from the countries of the housemaids being exploited, which reaped large amounts of money in a short period of time, and investigations also revealed these maids were kept in detention for a short period before being sold to another buyer.
As a result, a total of 150 expats have been deported from the country and were blacklisted from re-entering Kuwait again. Also, the maids who used to agree to this kind of business of escaping from sponsors have been held in custody by authorities.
In relation to this, the Investigation of Residents Affairs mentioned that the process of trafficking in domestic workers was very active before the holy month of Ramadan, pointing out that the security services were able to arrest 1,800 accused of brokering on girls and manipulation within three years.
Furthermore, police and labor inspectors raiding suspected places in various parts of the Gulf country found that some domestic worker recruitment offices are involved in such activities in coordination with the defendants.
Authorities have also discovered that many of the offices involved were non-existent as they are only on paper. These offices contact domestic workers in Kuwait and encourage them to leave their sponsors for more money.
Meanwhile, all those caught have already been deported while nearly 420 defendants who were seized in 2018 and 860 in 2017 have also been expelled from Kuwait.