PREVENTION
The government continued some efforts to prevent trafficking. Authorities worked with NGOs and international experts to draft a 2014-2019 action plan, but it was not formally approved by the close of the reporting period. A national anti-trafficking coordinator regularly convened a coordinating body composed of relevant government agencies, NGOs, and international observers. The government produced annual progress reports which were made available to foreign governments, NGOs, and international organizations. Awareness-raising efforts included a one-month campaign aimed at potential child victims of trafficking and a three- day conference on trafficking victims’ rights with participation by judges, prosecutors, justice officials, and NGO representatives from six countries in the region.The government did not demonstrate efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor. The government provided anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel. Diplomatic personnel are provided a manual to aid in identifying trafficking victims and are instructed not to engage in human trafficking or trafficking-related activities.

KUWAIT:  Tier 3 
Kuwait is a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and, to a lesser degree, forced prostitution. Men and women migrate from South and Southeast Asia, Egypt, the Middle East, and increasingly throughout Africa to work in Kuwait, mainly in the domestic service, construction, and sanitation sectors.While Filipino, Indian, and Sri Lankan women continue to represent a significant percentage of Kuwait’s domestic worker population, in the last few years, there has been a reported increase in migrants from Ethiopia, Uganda, and Madagascar.Though most migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, upon arrival some sponsors subject migrants to forced labor, including through nonpayment of wages, long working hours without rest, deprivation of food, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as confinement to the workplace and the withholding of passports. Many of the migrant workers arriving in Kuwait have paid exorbitant fees to labor recruiters in their home countries or are coerced into paying labor broker fees in Kuwait which, according to Kuwaiti law, should be paid by the employer—a practice making workers highly vulnerable to forced labor, including debt bondage. Some

labor recruiting companies have been complicit in trafficking with their use of deceptive recruiting techniques to bring in migrant workers on the basis of unenforceable contracts and nonexistent positions, while promising employers workers who are well-trained but turn out to be unskilled. Kuwait’s sponsorship law, which ties a migrant worker’s legal residence and valid immigration status to an employer, restricts workers’ movements and penalizes them for “running away” from abusive workplaces; as a result, domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to forced labor inside private homes.While Kuwait requires employers to use a standard contract for domestic workers delineating some basic rights, Kuwait lacks a domestic labor law to govern the relationship between domestic workers and sponsors. Thus, many workers report experiencing work conditions substantially different from those described in the contract; some workers never see the contract at all and others receive Arabic- or English-language contracts that they are unable to read. In addition, sources report runaway domestic workers are sometimes exploited in forced prostitution by agents or criminals who manipulate their illegal status.
The Government of Kuwait does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making sufficient efforts to do so.The government increased its capacity to protect trafficking victims in 2014 through the official opening of its high-capacity shelter and amendment of its shelter regulations, which now allow any woman access to the shelter without formal referral.The government continued its efforts to prevent trafficking during the reporting period by conducting investigations into visa fraud rings, including those allegedly involving government officials, leading to the closure of hundreds of labor recruitment firms and hundreds of people referred for prosecution. However, of the hundreds of visa fraud violators referred for prosecution, only one case has been investigated under the 2013 counter-trafficking law and the government has yet to prosecute or convict suspected traffickers. Existing laws do not provide adequate prosecutorial power or punishments for those operating labor recruiting firms.The government did not report adequate efforts to prosecute or convict suspected traffickers.The government did not implement formal procedures to identify or refer trafficking victims, and victims of trafficking continued to be arrested, detained, and deported. Emerging efforts to issue exit and travel documents to abused workers whose passports had been confiscated were not accompanied by any enforcement activities against the employers from whom the workers had fled.

RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR KUWAIT:
Enforce laws against sponsors and employers who illegally hold migrant workers’ passports; implement the 2013 anti-trafficking law by investigating and prosecuting trafficking offenses and convicting and punishing offenders, particularly sponsors who subject domestic workers to involuntary servitude; greatly increase law enforcement efforts, including investigations of trafficking offenses perpetrated by Kuwaiti citizens, and establish standard

operating procedures for investigations and prosecutions of trafficking crimes; coordinate with the public prosecutor’s office to amend current laws to allow for the prosecution of labor recruiting firms; establish procedures to proactively identify and refer to protection services all victims of human trafficking, especially among the female domestic worker population; establish linkages between emerging victim care efforts and law enforcement activities; continue to train shelter staff in providing services to potential trafficking victims; ensure the availability of shelter and services to male victims, sex trafficking victims, and forced labor victims outside of the domestic worker context; amend the sponsorship law to protect foreign workers, including domestic workers, from abuse; increase effective coordination between ministries through the inter-ministerial anti-trafficking committee; and continue to increase efforts to prevent trafficking.

PROSECUTION
The government made weak anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.The government enacted anti-trafficking legislation in March 2013, which prohibits all forms of trafficking.The law prescribes penalties ranging from 15 years’ to life imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. During the reporting period, the government did not report any prosecutions, convictions, or sentences of trafficking offenders for either forced labor or sex trafficking. While it investigated visa fraud rings, allegedly involving complicit officials, including in the Ministries of Interior (MOI), Social Affairs and Labor (MOSAL), and Commerce and Industry, as well as members of the ruling Al-Sabah family, the government failed to prosecute and convict officials complicit in these trafficking or trafficking-related offenses. Although the withholding of workers’ passports is prohibited under Kuwaiti law, this practice remains common among sponsors and employers of foreign workers, and the government demonstrated no efforts to enforce this prohibition. It remained uncommon to find domestic workers who took refuge in their home-country embassy shelters with their passports in their possession. The government remained reluctant to prosecute Kuwaiti citizens for trafficking offenses. Kuwaiti law enforcement treated cases of forced domestic labor as administrative infractions, and punishment was limited to assessing fines, shutting down employment firms, issuing orders for employers to return withheld passports, or requiring employers to pay back-wages. In 2014, the MOI, in partnership with an international organization, held an anti-trafficking training. The judicial institute continued its mandatory human trafficking course for all newly-hired judicial officials, including prosecutors and judges.