Kuwaiti social media celebrity says domestic workers shouldn’t get days off, sparks outrage

A Kuwaiti social media star is under fire for complaining about changes to the country’s kafala system which now give Filipino migrant workers the right to days off and to keep control of their own passports.

In a video that tweeps uploaded to Twitter earlier this week, Al Qattan makes several comments criticizing the new work contracts.

“For people who want to go get a Filipino domestic worker, what are these ridiculous work contracts you’ve got to sign? The woman I met with was reading out the rules to me and I was just shocked. Put aside that they need to be given a break every five hours, that’s normal. But, how can you have a ‘servant’ in your house who gets to keep their passport with them? Where are we living? If they ran away and went back to their country, who’ll refund me?,” she said.

Al Qattan didn’t stop at that but also went on to object to a rule that grants a worker a day off per week.

“Even worse, is that they get a day off every single week! What’s left? Honestly, with this new contract, I just wouldn’t ‘get’ a Filipino ‘maid.’ She’d only work six days a week and get four days off a month,” she added.

Ms Alqattan has been heavily criticised online since she posted the video. Users have called her complaint racist and accused her of “wanting to have a slave rather than an employee”.

Ms Alqattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment and has since disabled comments on her Instagram account.

Kuwait, like most Middle Eastern countries, operates a kafala sponsorship system for migrants who mostly work in unskilled cleaning and construction jobs.

In Kuwait, Filipino workers were given new rights, including one day off a week, and proper contracts after a Filipino maid was murdered by her Lebanese employees in Kuwait City earlier this year.