E/CN.4/1997/71/Add.2 page 5 B. Absence of national legislation to protect domestic workers 1. Random recruitment methods 18. There is no legislation governing the recruitment of domestic workers. It is handled by Kuwaiti recruitment agencies, which maintain a list of such workers who live abroad and wish to come to Kuwait. It must be said that some Kuwaiti recruitment agencies simply traffic in workers in order to make money. Some, for example, undertake to recruit and place 1,000 domestic workers per year. Since supply exceeds demand, competition is keen and wages range from KD 20 to KD 45. There is even rivalry between the States which export manpower, which have no coherent, stringent policies; each defends its own interests as determined by its unemployment rate. 19. In principle, domestic workers are hired for a two-year period, though some receive five-year contracts. Since each employer or sponsor has a right to two household workers, they make certain that an unsatisfactory one can be expelled and replaced by another. A servant who flees or is expelled must be replaced. For this reason, employers confiscate the travel documents of their employees (passports containing visas and other administrative papers) and hold on to them so that they can be turned over to the police if it is necessary to expel the employee. Most domestic workers have no contact with anyone outside, or even within, Kuwait. Since most of them do not know how to read, they do not know their employer's address. They leave their employer's home and take refuge in a safe house maintained by the embassy of their own country if they are mistreated, beaten, wounded or raped, are homesick and wish to leave before the end of their contract or are seeking a better-paid job. 2. The sponsor or Master 20. Anyone seeking to employ a domestic worker - every Kuwaiti has a legal right to employ two such workers (for example, a maid, chauffeur or cook) turns to one of the many recruitment agencies. He makes his selection from a catalogue presented to him and pays KD 400; in a month or two, he accepts delivery of his “property” as “Cafil” or sponsor. Thereafter, the servant is his; some claim that there is a contract but, in reality, neither party has any rights or obligations with regard to the other. Domestic workers customarily receive about KD 35 per month, with progressive rises as and if the employer so chooses. The employer provides the employee with housing, food and clothing. In practice, there are no working hours; the servant works in the kitchen, does the dishes and laundry, acts as babysitter and, in short, functions as the maid of all work. Domestic workers have a right to one day off. Those authorized by their employers to leave the house gather in the central part of Kuwait City on Fridays, but others are kept at home by their employers for fear that they might run away or get pregnant. 21. Employer-employee relationships are complicated by the latter's problems in adapting to the Kuwaiti social and cultural environment. Generally speaking, domestic workers from the above-mentioned Asian countries do not speak Arabic and know nothing about Kuwaiti culture. Those from Bangladesh often have nothing in common with their employers except Islam. It is therefore difficult for such employees to adapt to the customs of the host