Manama: Kuwait has officially suspended issuing entry visas to Indian domestic workers.
Assistant Undersecretary for Citizenship and Passports Shaikh Mazen Al Jarrah called for ensuring that no computers could be used to issue the visas.
“The decision to reprogram the department’s computers in order to deny access for procedures to issue entry visas to Indian domestic workers was made following a missive from the foreign ministry to the interior ministry.
In the letter, the ministry said the Indian ambassador Sunil Jain had informed them that Kuwait had not accepted a condition requested by the Indian government and stipulated in the contracts of domestic helpers,” a security source told Kuwaiti daily Al Anba. “According to the Indian ambassador’s letter, the non-compliance by Kuwait meant that no Indian domestic helper could be recruited,” the source added.
The ambassador in his letter to the Deputy Foreign Minister said that despite the request that Kuwait stop issuing visas to Indian domestic helpers, the interior ministry continued to issue visas in fraudulent ways.
According to Indian media, Kuwait is the only Gulf country that has failed to accept a condition set by the Indian government requesting foreign employers to pay $2,500 (Dh9,182) as bank guarantee to hire Indian domestic workers.
India attributed the imposition of the security deposit after Indian missions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries reported complaints about unpaid or delayed salaries and harassment.
The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But while five of the six members accepted the Indian request, Kuwait has not, prompting the reaction from the New Delhi government.
“We had asked Kuwaiti authorities to stop issuing visas since domestic workers were entering the country illegally and we had no way to track them if [they] faced problems,” Jain told The Times of India. “Since Kuwait did not want its citizens to provide bank guarantees to ensure the rights of workers, we asked them not to issue visas as middlemen are illegally bringing in workers from India.”
Indians make up the largest expatriate community in Kuwait, numbering around 750,000, including 270,000 domestic workers.
Most of them are unskilled workers in the construction and service sectors.
