Migrant domestic workers, labour exploitation and anti-trafficking laws in Uganda and Saudi Arabia: Moving beyond exceptionalism
Nabasitu, Daisy
Nabasitu, Daisy
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Identifiers
http://hdl.handle.net/10379/18146
https://doi.org/10.13025/17775
https://doi.org/10.13025/17775
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Publication Date
2024-04-11
Type
Thesis
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Abstract
This thesis focuses on the trafficking of Ugandan migrant domestic workers for labour exploitation to Saudi Arabia. Trafficking for labour exploitation is a widespread challenging phenomenon in the migration discourse attracting global attention. Domestic work, often classified as informal employment, is characterised by historical constructions of invisibility, vulnerability and exceptionalism. The thesis demonstrates that migrant domestic workers’ vulnerabilities are associated with the intersectionality of their gender, race and migration status, which are deeply rooted in national labour laws that shape their migration experiences. Using an in-depth historical socio-legal analysis, the study explores how Uganda’s recruitment regulatory framework and labour law links with Saudi Arabia’s labour laws and policies embedded with the colonial legacies of exploitation, the deep-rooted conscious exclusion of domestic work, and histories of racial thinking, to perpetuate migrant domestic workers’ vulnerability to trafficking for labour exploitation. International human rights instruments have created and developed standards protecting migrant workers against trafficking for labour exploitation. However, the analysis points to States’ reluctance to enforce these instruments through failure to ratify and domesticate the instruments and, arguably, through inability to enact protective and inclusive national labour laws to complement the anti-trafficking legislations. Through evaluating the measures taken by Uganda and Saudi Arabia to protect migrant domestic workers’ rights, the thesis explores the need to address the gendered and racialised historical legacies of colonialism manifested in national labour laws and policies. It further highlights that any proposed legislative and Labour reform initiatives continue facing challenges due to the absence of a protective national labour law framework. And where Bilateral Labour Agreements (BLAs) are adopted to bridge the protection gap, their monitoring and enforcement still remain a challenge. The thesis, therefore, argues that bridging migrant domestic workers’ protection gap not only requires enacting inclusive and protective laws that adopt a balanced human rights-labour approach but also addressing the intersecting variables, rethinking the temporary migration programmes and completely abolishing the Kafala sponsorship scheme as the first step. This should be backed up by effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. However, looking beyond the law, the question remains whether, by moving beyond exceptionalism, migrant domestic workers’ rights are enforceable in their workplace.
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NUI Galway