The Kuwaiti Progressive Movement announces its vision regarding addressing demographics after the government decided to establish the National Committee for Regulating Demographics
It is important for the Kuwaiti Progressive Movement after the issuance of the Council of Ministers' decision in its last session to form the National Committee for Regulating Demographics to announce its vision regarding addressing the demographics.
We reject the class-racial narrative, which holds resident workers responsible for what is called "demographic imbalance" and views them as a danger that must be eliminated. We also oppose focusing on one aspect only, which is the low percentage of Kuwaiti citizens in the total population, without addressing the other basic aspects represented in the horrendous exploitation that resident workers are subjected to through long working hours, low wages, delayed payment, and other violations. confiscating their passports, preventing relocation to work elsewhere, being subject to detention and forced deportation, depriving resident workers of any trade union rights and social guarantees, exposure to physical violence and sexual abuse, especially for domestic workers, and lack of fixed working hours and weekly days off.
The Kuwaiti Progressive Movement believes that the root of the problem lies in the following five interrelated factors:< /p>
First: The rentier, parasitic capitalist development that is dependent on and distorts the Kuwaiti economy, and the private sector's dissolution of any commitment to hiring national labor and its eagerness to bring cheap expatriate labor deprived of the simplest guarantees to be subjected to the worst types of class exploitation, and exploited as tenants and consumers.
Second: the destructive role of residency dealers.
Third: the absence of any serious national policy for employment, population and immigration.
Fourth: The consumer lifestyle and values of the consumer society resulted in negative effects that led to more reliance on expatriate domestic workers.
Fifth: The kafala system, which represents a system of new slavery, unjustly defines the relationship between resident workers and employers, without any obligation to care for these workers and guarantee their most basic rights.
While the Kuwaiti Progressive Movement rejects any racist and bourgeois approach to the issue of demographics, it adheres to the need to be considerate of human rights and respect for labor rights, in addition to taking into account the needs of the Kuwaiti economy and public services, according to the following six orientations:
1- Qualifying the national workforce, especially in vital sectors such as oil, electricity and water production, and relying on it with stable and expatriate workers instead of bringing in more new foreign workers.< /p>
2- Adopt a well-thought-out policy to nationalize the labor force in various sectors, without discriminating against the children of Kuwaiti women and Kuwaiti Bedoon, and change the negative attitude taken by the private sector towards the employment of national workers.
3- Increasing the minimum wage, ensuring the regularity of its payment , and empowering resident workers with their trade union rights.
4- Incurring employers a greater cost for the hiring of resident labor, and bearing the cost of their accommodation and treatment.
5- Fighting and criminalizing trade in residency, abolishing the Kafala system and replacing it with the call-to -work system.
6- Providing legal protection for domestic workers.
In conclusion, the Kuwaiti Progressive Movement hopes that the National Demographics Regulatory Committee will take all these elements and suggestions into account when it sets policies or takes decisions in this regard.
< p id="">Kuwait
9th of May, 2023