A/HRC/32/50 times, this prejudice translates into physical and verbal harassment of individuals.61 Intolerance by members of the public is often further entrenched by State-sponsored discrimination.62 Public calls by government bodies and the media for the preservation of countries’ identity and culture against the impact of foreigners have also been observed. 63 Certain governments have responded by establishing tougher recruitment policies, sending back “surplus” foreign workers, making the renewal of residence permits more difficult, and restricting where migrants can live and their access to certain sectors of activity.64 59. In several countries of the region, nationality is constructed on the basis of religious participation and belonging.65 Religious minorities have been framed in public discourse as threats to the majority, or as not belonging to the society, and experience prejudice from members of society in addition to economic and political exclusion.66 Education systems in certain places contribute to promoting and emphasizing the superiority of some religious groups over others and diffuse ethnocentric understandings of history and other cultures. 67 60. In this region there are also growing concerns about the treatment of migrant women, especially as migration has become more feminized.68 Migrant women employed as domestic workers are often subjected to exploitative labour practices and to sexual violence and abuse. Their status as foreigners multiplies their vulnerability to gender-based discrimination and violence. 61. The labour sponsorship system69 in place in many countries in the Middle East does not offer protection to migrant workers, 70 allows employers to exercise excessive power over foreign employees and promotes the spatial and social exclusion of migrants from host societies. Often, low-skilled migrant workers who do not live in the homes of their employers are forced to live in camps and are subjected to poor living conditions and 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 Ray Jureidini, “Mixed migration flows: Somali and Ethiopian migration to Yemen and Turkey”, final report, May 2010. Sammy Smooha, Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel 2003-2009. Magdalena Maria Karolak and Anjum Razzaque. “Marginalizing or blending of transnational workers: case of the Kingdom of Bahrain”. Somkiet Poopatwiboon, vol. 1981, issue 1991, p. 100. Anisur Rahman, “Migration and human rights in the Gulf”, available from www.mei.edu/content/migration-and-human-rights-gulf (accessed on 12 May 2016); F. Halliday, “Labour migration in the Arab World”, Middle East Report, MER 123, pp. 3-10; and Michele R. Gamburd, “Sri Lankan migration to the Gulf: female breadwinners – domestic workers”, Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C. David Zeidan, “The Copts—equal, protected or persecuted? The impact of Islamization on MuslimChristian relations in modern Egypt”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, vol. 10, issue 1 (1999), pp. 53-67. Elizabeth Frantz, “Buddhism by other means: sacred sites and ritual practice among Sri Lankan domestic workers in Jordan”, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 11, issue 3-4 (2010), pp. 268-292; and David Zeidan, “The Copts—equal, protected or persecuted? The impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian relations in modern Egypt”, pp. 53-67. Thomas Hegghammer, “Jihad, yes, but not revolution: explaining the extraversion of Islamist violence in Saudi Arabia”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 395-416. Imee Acosta and Alexander Acosta, “In pain and in wail: a phenomenology of the abuses of the Filipino domestic workers, Qatar”; and Attiya Ahmad, “Migrant domestic workers in Kuwait: the role of State institutions”, Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C. Tristan Bruslé, “Living in and out of the host society. Aspects of Nepalese migrants’ experience of division in Qatar”, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, vol. 11, No. 2 (2010). Pardis Mahdavi, “Gender, labour and the law: the nexus of domestic work, human trafficking and the informal economy in the United Arab Emirates”, Global Networks, vol. 13, issue 4 (2013), pp. 425-440. 17