Abstract
Qatar has become a significant destination for migrant workers looking to escape unemployment in their home countries. However, highly active labour migration pathways create migration industries that exploit the increased supply of labour migrants, leading to trafficking. Human trafficking has been a longstanding concern in Qatar, especially with low-skilled migrant workers in the informal, domestic service and construction sectors. United Nations bodies and non-governamental organisations have criticised Qatar over the treatment of its migrant workforce, especially with concerns about trafficking for labour exploitation and forced labour. In addition to complaints of human trafficking, concerns have been raised concerning perceived racialised drivers of exploitation in Qatar. According to the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ms Tendayi Achiume, Qatar battles with issues of structural racial discrimination concerning its migrant workforce. This article examines the links between race and the trafficking of migrant workers in Qatar.
Introduction
In 2006, the then United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children (UNSRT), Sigma Huda, reporting on her country visits to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, highlighted the human trafficking of migrant workers (Huda, 2007). The Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (Palermo Protocol), defines human trafficking as “… the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”. (“Palermo Protocol,” 2003, Article 3(a))
The allegations of trafficking in Qatar, as with other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, often pinpoint the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of the kafala sponsorship system – the GCC's operative migrant labour governance mechanism – as a source of vulnerability to trafficking (Huda, 2007, para. 91). There is significant academic ink on the kafala system and its influence on exacerbating the conditions that increase migrant workers’ vulnerability to human trafficking (Bajracharya and Sijapati, 2012). The analyses approach exploitation in the kafala system from the citizen–non-citizen divide, highlighting the power asymmetry between the sponsor/employer and their employee, which increases the vulnerability of migrant workers to exploitation (ter Haar, 2018: 132). These analyses have helped expand the links between state-sanctioned control mechanisms and coercion to exploitation. However, limited attention is given to the role that race plays in fashioning a social hierarchy between citizens and migrants and also within migrant groups in the GCC that positions low-skilled migrants from the global south in situations of vulnerability to exploitation, including trafficking.
The 2001 World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (2001 World Conference Against Racism) featured conversations on the impact of race, racial and social marginalisation, racial discrimination, and racist ideologies on creating vulnerabilities to trafficking and formulating concepts of ideal human trafficking victims (United Nations, 2001). However, race and racialisation remain mostly absent from academic and policy discussions on trafficking and migrant worker exploitation in the GCC. For example, the Technical Cooperation programme between Qatar and the International Labour Organisation (ILO),which seeks to reform labour and migration standards in Qatar in response to trafficking and forced labour concerns, does not feature conversations on race or racialisation (ILO, 2022). This presents a critical scholarly and practical gap in understanding the constitution of trafficking in Qatar and the GCC, even as the impact of race on exacerbating vulnerabilities to trafficking and exploitation has been made on the international stage and in other jurisdictions.
There are different reasons for the absence of race in the anti-trafficking conversation in Qatar and other GCC countries. Laura Menin suggests a culture of silence on race-related issues in the Arab world (Menin, 2020: 8). Others, such as Bruce Hall, explain that the absence of race-centred conversations results from push-back against the use of a perceived Western concept – race – in non-Western locales where they do not fit, perpetuating a form of vernacular epistemic imperialism (Hall, 2020: 34–36). Nevertheless, there is a growing recognition among Gulf scholarship of this gap, as scholars have recently begun untangling the complexities of racial and social ordering in the GCC. This article contributes to this stream of scholarship by introducing race as a factor for consideration in Qatar's migration and human trafficking analytical framework.
Hall holds that racism and racialisation are expressed in different forms and should be understood from the context where it appears (Hall, 2020: 36–40). This article contends that race is expressed through affective national or ethnic identifiers in the GCC, manifesting a system of exclusion and inclusion based on collective and differential grouping of perceived others, that is, racialisation. It argues that the collective racialisation of perceived others (horizontal racialisation) is also supported by the differential racialisation of perceived others according to power relations and social stratification (vertical racialisation). Differential treatment of equally racialised groups, where those with more power and higher social and class levels (positively racialised others) obtain more privileges, leaves those without (negatively racialised others) at the bottom of the social order and more vulnerable to exploitation, including trafficking.
This article further holds that racial othering expressed through social ordering encourages the collective dehumanisation of the negatively racialised other, with the backing of exclusionary societal customs and laws that exacerbate vulnerability to trafficking. This collective dehumanisation is not limited to relationships between citizens and non-citizens but also directs the relationship between different groups of racially classified non-citizens. Here, privileges resulting from power differentials enjoyed by positively racialised others also include the domination and exploitation of the negatively racialised other. While this article does not argue for a complete shift in analytical frames, it looks to broaden the scope and understanding of drivers of exploitation in Qatar by highlighting the role of race and racialisation.
This article proceeds in three main parts. The first section examines the links between migration and exclusion in the GCC by historicising migration dynamics and demography. It uncovers the subtlety of racialisation through politics of exclusion and inclusion as a tool of colonial governance, preservation of cultural homogeneity, and migration management. The first section opens pathways to situating race within migration narratives in the second section. The second section introduces race and racialisation as a consideration in migration politics. It explains that collective identities in the Gulf, supported through social customs and positive law, create a national identity around strict markers that delimit those without those markers as others. In this light, it argues that national identities are a vehicle for racial ordering as it collectively classifies outsiders as the racialised other. Here, the article introduces concepts of differential racialisation through class and status ordering that demarcate different perceived racial classes, highlighting the vulnerabilities that this demarcation presents for the negatively racialised other. Finally, the third section highlights the impact of race and racialisation on human trafficking. Through differential racialisation, it highlights how racial segregation and oppression, racial capitalism, and distancing and isolation create the ideal trafficking victim, bar access to protection and justice for victims of trafficking, and entrench vulnerability to trafficking for South(east) Asian and sub-Saharan African migrant workers.
Between Migration, Demography and Exclusion
The Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population Programme estimate the percentage of migrants in Qatar at 88.4% of Qatar's over 2.8 million inhabitants, making Qatar one of the largest migrant-receiving countries by proportion globally (GLMM, 2022). Recent estimates of migration to Qatar indicate that migration corridors from South(east) Asian countries have significantly increased since the 1980s, displacing the prior migration corridors from other Arab countries (Thiollet, 2019: 9). Additionally, migrant flows from Northern and sub-Saharan African countries have increased since the 2000s (De Bel-Air, 2017: 10). However, the increase in labour migration in Qatar has been followed by increased reports of trafficking for labour exploitation of low-skilled migrant workers along the various migration corridors (International Trade Union Confederation, 2014: 18, 22, 28).
Trafficking allegations in Qatar pinpoint the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of the kafala sponsorship system. Analyses into exclusion and discrimination refer to an ethnocratic political system in Qatar and the wider GCC, backed by a strict patrilineal jus sanguinis citizenship regime that all but outrightly denies foreigners access to citizenship by naturalisation (Koch, 2016: 47). Although these citizenship regimes are not exclusive to the GCC, the ‘restricted citizenship and unrestricted migration’ framework in the Gulf creates a unique asymmetry of citizens and migrants, where for example, as highlighted above in Qatar, migrants account for over 88% of the population (AlShehabi, 2015: 3–5). This framework also maintains the perceived ethnonational homogeneity of Gulf states through curated restriction of access to citizenship. Anh Nga Longva advanced the ethnonational perspective in her seminal work on migration and exclusion in Kuwait (Longva, 1997). Longva's analysis is integral to understanding how foreigners in Kuwaiti society and, by extension, other GCC states are excluded from the enjoyment of social benefits of the state and almost all aspects of national identity. Among other things, Longva bases the systemic exclusion and othering of migrant populations in Kuwait on a social hierarchy that places citizens at the top and migrant workers at the bottom (Longva, 1997; Shah, 1998: 496–470).
Domestic exclusion based on social hierarchies in Arab societies is evident through the kafala system of labour migration governance in Qatar and the wider GCC region. Although the kafala system has slightly different iterations across Gulf states, the various systems share some core characteristics. The kafala system is best understood as a work and residence sponsorship system where entry into and continued residence in the country is contingent on a local sponsor. The sponsor is then responsible for the worker's living and employment conditions, precluding the worker from changing jobs or leaving the country without the sponsor's permission (AlShehabi, 2021). Law No. 4 of the year 2009, ‘Regarding Regulation of the Expatriates Entry, Departure, Residence, and Sponsorship’ (Law No. 4 of 2009) and amended by Law No. 21 of 2015 regulating the entry and exit of expatriates and their residence (together termed as kafala laws) created the operational parameters for the kafala system in Qatar. Qatar's kafala laws deputised individuals and companies as immigration and labour officers and as the primary contact between the migrant worker and the state. The kafala laws, among others, provided that expatriates resident in the state shall first obtain the relevant visa through a sponsor who may be a Qatari national or a legal entity located in or having an administrative branch in Qatar.
The sponsor in the kafala system was made responsible for completing the different residency procedures, including the application and renewal of residence permits for expatriates, solidifying the sponsor's legal control over the migrant worker. The kafala laws prevented migrant workers admitted into Qatar from deviating from the purpose for which their migration was authorised, effectively preventing them from working for another sponsor or employer. These provisions bound the migrant to the employer or sponsor, effectively maintaining the worker in a state of employment and residence-related hyper-precarity and hyper-dependence on their employers (Zou, 2014). The asymmetrical nature of the employer and employee in the kafala system was further enhanced as workers needed permission from their employers to leave the country and work for a different entity by obtaining a No-Objection Certificate (NoC).
In addition to media, NGO, and academic analysis of the lived experiences of low-skilled migrant workers from Southeast and South Asian countries and their exploitative working conditions, it is essential to note that the kafala system governs both low and high-skilled workers’ labour migration. However, the conditions of employment and the treatment and relationship with sponsors differ among perceived classes of migrants. The kafala system significantly limits naturalisation or permanent settlement, as migrants arrive in Gulf states on time-bound work and residence permits and are required to leave the country upon expiration of the permit if the permit is not renewed. Additionally, for the duration of their contracts, migrant workers are usually tied to a sponsor who acts as the state-sanctioned interlocutor between migrants and the state, creating at least two classes in social hierarchies and supporting the citizen–non-citizen dichotomy. Longva explains that this is important to maintain the sanctity of Gulf ethnic identity and to exclude foreigners from benefiting from the generosity of oil wealth redistribution in Gulf rentier societies.
Migration Dynamics and the Foundations of Exclusion
Exclusion and the citizen–non-citizen dichotomy in the GCC are built on the foundations of contemporary labour migration, which fashions exclusion through a subtle lens of race and racialisation. The first point occurred through the British colonial administration's transfer of colonial administrators from the United Kingdom and the Indian subcontinent to bolster the colonial security and administration apparatus in the Gulf. Here, the colonial administrators encouraged distancing from the local population to strengthen its administration and domination of colonial territories (AlShehabi, 2015: 6).
Through colonial principles of separation as a necessary tool to ensure political control of colonised territories, the British colonial administration introduced exclusion into domestic policies in the GCC. The colonial separation created a social hierarchy with colonial administrators at the top and the local population at the bottom. Immediately after discovering oil reserves in the region, the trends of immigration to the GCC mirrored migration during colonial times. Increased oil exploration and the wealth of the oil companies and the ruling families in the GCC led to expanded public sector investments in the infrastructure, education and health services sectors. In this, a nationality and skill-based hierarchy emerged with western migrants occupying skilled-level administrative positions in British or US-owned oil companies. In contrast, migrants from the Indian subcontinent and Italian settlers from the Horn of Africa occupied semi-skilled roles (AlShehabi, 2015: 6–7). However, the oil boom drove widespread infrastructural development that required more migrant workers to fill apparent labour shortages.
The preferred migrant group to fill labour shortages was Arab migrants, as notions of Arabness, linguistic, geographical, cultural, ethnic and religious similarities made them the obvious choice (Kapiszewski, 2004: 116). Mandana Limbert notes an inherent ethnicity-based idea of Arabness in the Gulf social hierarchies shaped by genealogy markers, migratory history, and language (Limbert, 2014: 590). These notions of Arabness, having developed over time and influenced through trading networks, proclamations of shared heritages, and discussions surrounding hereditary and acceptable familial and sexual relationships, manifest an ‘Arabic identity’. In fashioning this collective identity, notions of belonging and collective emotions through affective citizenship birthed ‘affective Arabness’ as a vehicle of exclusion or inclusion (Johnson, 2010: 496). Affective Arabness reflects the collective emotions that drove the search for similarities in filling labour shortages.
Another possible reason for the preference for Arab migrants could be Indian independence, which resulted in the loosened tripartite relationship between the British Government, the colonies in the Indian subcontinent, and the Gulf states, disrupting the flow of migrants on that corridor (Chalcraft, 2010: 6). Additionally, the Palestinian nakba, the Ba'athist coup in Baghdad, and the civil war in Yemen increased migrant flows in the region, diversifying the choice of migrants. Hence, in the 1970s, Egyptians, Yemenis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and Iraqis constituted a significant percentage of the workforce in the GCC, ranging from around 90% in Saudi Arabia to about a quarter of the workforce in Kuwait and Qatar. The positive sentiments driven by ethnocultural, religious and linguistic similarities strengthened the recognition of the Arabic identity and affective Arabness of these new migrants, encouraging integration and assimilation between the host and immigrant societies (Chalcraft, 2010: 7–8).
Notably, the Arab migrant population were wealthy and relatively more educated than the host communities, so they played significant roles in the education and public sectors, increasing their influence in the host societies. Much of the migrant population came from politically charged locales when pan-Arabic nationalist sentiment, Nasserism and nationalist, anti-monarchy and anti-imperialist political activity were at a head (Kapiszewski, 2004: 119–120). Hence, Arab migrants were involved considerably in civil and social movements in the host countries. However, these factors created a suspicion towards the formerly welcomed Arab migrants, as host populations and Gulf leadership grew wary of these ethnically similar migrants’ growing political and social influence on Gulf societies.
Additionally, a changing political climate in the Arab world, supercharged by the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and the support for the invasion shown by the Palestinian leadership, facilitated the reversal of the acceptance of Arab migrants in favour of non-Arab migrants. Other factors besides the political, such as the inability of Arab labour exports to meet the expansive need of domestic labour shortages in the GCC, also enabled this preference change (Khalaf, 2015: 47). Shifting interests in labour migration for the above reasons backtracked to previous pre and early oil boom migration trends. Ultimately, migrant workers from the Indian subcontinent were considered preferable to Arab migrants for reasons linked directly and indirectly to the preference for migrant exclusion and non-integration with the host population.
Exclusion was reintroduced as the preferable option in fashioning migration policies in the Gulf. This time, it was bolstered by legal and policy initiatives, including codifying the kafala system and strengthening migration controls. For example, Qatar adopted the now repealed Law No. 14 of 1992 on Bringing Workers From Abroad for the Interest of Third Parties – Law No. 14 of 1992 – (Qatar, 1992), which framed recruitment as a national security consideration by regulating it under the security arm of the state, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Under Law No. 14 of 1992, migrant worker populations dominated by Indian, Nepali, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Egyptian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani migrants faced a more robust labour control regime under a recruitment monitoring binary, binding workers first to the state through the Ministry of Internal Affairs and then to their employer or sponsors through recruitment and employment relationships. The binary relationship established a climate of control that limited migrant workers’ rights and strengthened the links between migrants and their sponsors, increasing the risks of labour trafficking (Iskander, 2021: 60–63).
Migrants from South(east) Asian countries were considered cheaper to employ, lay off, underpay, and manage due to linguistic and cultural differences and their characteristically single-unit migration, that is, without their families (Gardner, 2011: 6). Michelle Buckley refers to this group as ‘Bachelor’ Builders’, referencing the preference for single male migrant construction workers from South(east) Asian countries (Buckley, 2015). The single-unit migration of South(east) Asians and the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious differences set them apart from the Arabness of previous migrants. They were viewed as less likely to claim political and social citizenship and more likely to remain disenfranchised as passive observers of political processes (Fargues, 2011: 278–280). This also served to maintain political power in the ruling class in the GCC as the fears of political activism through pan-Arab nationalism and Islamism that trailed Arab migration were nullified (Forstenlechner and Rutledge, 2011: 31).
GCC states also pursued a policy of diversifying migrant source countries across South(east) Asia to increase the heterogeneity of migrant workers and discourage migrant solidarity and community (Shah, 2013: 38). However, the pre and early oil boom migrant hierarchies were maintained as Western and predominantly white migrants formed a small group of highly skilled workers occupying managerial and administrative roles. The space between the migrants from the South(east) Asian and Western migrants occupying the lower and upper echelons of the migrant pyramid, respectively, was filled by remaining Arab migrants who occupied middle-class professions in the public and private sectors. Neha Vora and Ahmed Kanna note a three-tier social hierarchy consisting of citizens at the top, expatriates – usually skilled white migrants from the global north – in the middle, and migrant labourers – low-skilled and perennially excluded labourers from the global south – at the bottom (Kanna et al., 2020: 80).
The segregation of migrants exposes nuances within the discourse on migrant demography in GCC. Although race is not a primary mention, the evolution of migration and exclusion in the GCC highlights the lingering impact of racialisation through ethnicity, nationality and class-based social ordering in Gulf societies (Buckley, 2015: 136). Colonialism-induced racial ordering masked as colonial administration created a template for exclusion, which has persisted. Through separation policies as an essential tool for the political control of colonised territories, the British colonial administration introduced exclusion into domestic policies in the GCC, which has endured as a lasting effect of colonialism (de Vries and Spijkerboer, 2021). Notions of affective Arabness highlight a template of racialisation underlying social and industrial inclusion and social exclusion in the development of migration governance in the Gulf. The willingness to move past exclusion to integration with familiar Arab migrants, even beyond private sector employment, highlights the impact of ethnoracial sentiments as a social and political driver of migration governance in the Gulf.
The deliberate choice to develop a profile for the perfect and perennially excluded migrant highlights an adapted form of British colonial administration-induced racialised exclusion, with similar yet different roles for racialisation. Whereas colonial racialisation pushed foreign domination through racialised exclusion to enhance governance and control structures, contemporary racialised exclusion prevents foreign domination by enhancing domestic control and governance structures. Yet, traditional narratives in Gulf migration continue to diminish the role of race and racialisation in understanding migration regimes and the kafala system as control mechanisms.
Recounting his personal experience as a researcher in Egypt and Mali, Hall notes stiff push-back and unwillingness from both locales’ intellectual and broader social communities to accept race as a characterisation of systemic and direct differential treatment of perceived others (Hall, 2020: 33–34). Interestingly, the push-back was centred on using the term race and not the realities of differentiated treatment. The perceived misrepresentation emanates from the belief that, as an analytical tool, race is a Western concept linked to European and Western imperialist projects of colonialism and dominance over much of the world, hence misplaced in non-Western locales (Hall, 2020: 34–36). This argument suggests a form of epistemic imperialism of Western centres of knowledge production by imposing Western ideals and definitions on non-Western settings as well as a vernacular imperialism through the forceful use of the term ‘race’ and its related iterations to describe ‘fundamentally different’ concepts.
Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc’ Wacquant's critique of Michael Hanchard's work on Brazilian black social movements exemplify this perceived epistemic and vernacular imperialism. Hanchard's work inquired into the difficulty of Afro-Brazilians and Afro-Brazilian socio-political movements to coalesce into formidable forces that successfully challenge institutional racism and bias (Hanchard, 1994). Drawing similarities with racial oppression in the United States, Hanchard notes, among other things, that Afro-Brazilians are portrayed in the media, movies and books as subordinate to and negatively racialised against white Brazilians or mixed Brazilians (Graden, 1996: 368). However, Bourdieu and Wacquant view Hanchard's work as an imposition ‘… of the US Civil Rights Movement into the universal standard for the struggle of all groups oppressed on the grounds of colour (or caste)’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999: 44). They argue that false universalisation of inauthentic and predominantly Western concepts, such as the whites and blacks racial binary, superimposes US tradition in locales such as Brazil, where racial division is fundamentally different. Admittedly, the heterogeneity of racial groupings in Brazil significantly differs from the one-drop-based racial ordering that creates whites versus blacks racial binary in North America and other predominantly white locales (Pandey, 2013: 95–96; Wolfe, 2016). Nonetheless, adopting seemingly Western terminology as a characterisation for local issues does not delegitimise local struggles or dilute a specific situation (French, 2000: 12).
Instead of challenging the authenticity of racial ideas in non-Western locales by searching for their origin, it is essential to refocus on the manifestation of race and racialisation in the particular context where it is found (Wolfe, 2016: 111). Hall makes a vital contribution by arguing for the need to view race as a tool to unmask other forms of social and political injustices, as racial politics is best understood within the context of its manifestation (Hall, 2020: 42). The following section attempts to uncover the interplays of race and exclusion in the GCC, focusing on Qatar. It analyses racial injustice in its specific context through political, cultural and religious governance perpetuating othering and discrimination.
Situating Race in Narratives on Migration and Exclusion in the GCC
Racial injustice in the Middle East is expressed through discriminatory and exclusionary legal codes and daily practices that seem internally societally acceptable and do not evoke the same emotions as when similar events occur in the West (Ozcelik, 2021: 2158). This supports previous claims of a culture of silence on racial issues in the Middle East, encouraged by the view that racial ideas do not fit within Middle Eastern societies, resulting in situations that ‘… maintain or exacerbate inequality of opportunity among ethnoracial groups’ (Berman and Paradies, 2010: 217). In highlighting the relationship between ethnoracial groupings and the racialisation of perceived others, it is essential to note that race is a social understanding of perceived human physical variations, which do not reflect any tangible biological differentiation (Smedley, 1998). Limbert's analysis that social variations in the GCC hinge on other markers, such as genealogy, familial and tribal affiliations, and religion, to mark Arabness emphasises this claim (Limbert, 2014: 591). One needs to look no further than the Constitutions of GCC countries that describe the states as Arab or Islamic for an example of how ethnoracial grouping drives social variations in the GCC and emphasises an Arab identity. For example, Article 1 of Qatar's Constitution holds that: “Qatar is an independent sovereign Arab State. Its religion is Islam and Shari’a law shall be a main source of its legislations. Its political system is democratic. The Arabic Language shall be its official language. The people of Qatar are a part of the Arab nation”.
Although people born abroad to a naturalised Qatari father also gain citizenship, Sharon Nagy notes a principal distinction between those considered ‘native’ Qataris and naturalised Qataris, which sometimes results in subtle discrimination (Nagy, 2006: 122–123). Nandita Sharma's work on the links between racism and the construction of citizenship and nationhood is vital to understanding the manifestation of racism in this context. National identity and nationality as racialised identifiers set a binary of co-citizens and non-citizens, which define, among others, eligibility for citizenship, access to benefits and rights, and conditions for admittance into the state's territory. Sharma explains that the duality of racism establishes a constructed sense of self through specific racialised markers that delimit separate groups (Sharma, 2015: 99). Article 1 of Qatar's Constitution constructs this national identity through ethnoracial markers, creating a strict category of citizen and non-citizen. The attribution of these markers risks normalising seemingly quotidian discriminatory practices against racialised others as racism can also be seen as the attribution to racialised others, a characterisation of inferiority or difference to justify their unequal treatment (Essed, 1990: 11).
Nationality as a racial identifier does not only delimit between co-citizens and non-citizens but also includes differential treatment of non-citizens according to their nationalities through differential racialisation (Sharma, 2015: 98–102). Differential racialisation refers to the differentiated treatment of diverse racialised peoples. In the context of migration, it highlights how racialisation differentially impacts certain groups of migrants according to their citizenship and class. Highlighting institutional racism in European Union migration policy, Erel et al. note the prevalence of classed and racialised occupational migration pathways, where certain nationalities are targeted for specific roles (Erel et al., 2016: 1344). This mirrors the structure of Qatar's transnational labour migration regime, where visas and work permits are issued in blocks. For example, in 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, xenophobia and other related intolerances Ms Tendayi Achiume, reporting on her country visit to Qatar, noted issues of structural racial discrimination concerning Qatar's migrant workforce (Achiume, 2020).
These visa regimes establish a nationality-driven informal quota system where companies and employers recruit mainly from one nationality group, resulting in a strong association of certain positions with particular nationalities or racial identities, that is, racial stereotyping. Racial stereotyping contributes to nationality-based structural racial discrimination toward migrants through Qatar's labour migration governance systems, consisting of bilateral labour agreements, labour and residency laws, and international recruitment practices. These practices intersect with class, and gender to manifest differential racialisation that determines for migrants, the quality and enjoyment of human rights, or the lack thereof.
According to power relations and social and class positioning, differential racialisation occurs horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, it occurs in the general racialisation of migrants within the GCC's labour migration governance and regulation systems, that is, all migrants are others and subject to the same labour migration governance systems. Vertically, it occurs through perceived skill level, class, nationality and gender-based classifications with high-skilled, mostly Western workers at the top, semi-skilled migrants consisting of a mix of Western, Arab, Asian and African migrants at the middle, and low-skilled migrants, primarily South(east) Asian and sub-Saharan African migrant workers at the bottom (Kanna et al., 2020: 94). Vertical classification affords class, nationality, and skill-based privileges to those considered highly skilled and semi-skilled while negatively racialising low-skilled migrants at the bottom.
Negative racialisation occurs as a normative reality through legal institutions. For example, regulation of the domestic care sector in most Gulf states primarily lies outside the general labour regulation systems (Fernandez, 2011: 450). This institutionalises the vulnerability to racialised labour exploitation, as South(east) Asian and sub-Saharan African migrants dominate the Gulf's domestic care sector. Confined to collapsed reproductive, recreational, and productive spaces, domestic workers in the Gulf face increased restrictions on movement and constant surveillance in productive and private spaces within mostly employer-provided accommodations. These leave them vulnerable to intimate forms of abuse and human rights violations, including physical, sexual and labour violations (İşcen, 2021: 2288–2289). Furthermore, race also intersects with gender to create multiple grounds of discrimination for workers in the Gulf's domestic and care sector, mostly dominated by female migrant workers.
The operationalisation of negative racialisation through differential racialisation in the kafala framework also births a system of institutionalised humiliation. Racialised humiliation, as defined by Bhikhu Parekh and applied by Bina Fernandez, refers to the relative impunity of those who enjoy and exercise considerable power and privilege within unequal societies and use that privilege through social institutions to engage in practices that disrespect and systematically violate the self-respect of groups (Bhikhu, 2011: 31). Fernandez notes that racialised humiliation manifests in the inhumane treatment of African and Asian low-skilled migrants who are negatively racialised as distant others and located at the bottom of the racial and social hierarchies in the Gulf states (Fernandez, 2021: 4350–4352).
Negative racialisation of migrants is also an integral factor in exploiting and commodifying migrant labour within global capitalist systems, that is, racial capitalism, of which the Gulf states are an essential component. Here, the low-cost and expendable labour of sub-Saharan African and South(east) Asian migrants are commodified for exploitation and capitalist accumulation in the GCC's flexible and precarious low-skilled job markets (Babar and Vora, 2022: 1–7). However, it is vital to note that racialisation and racialised exclusion of migrants are not peculiar to the Gulf. Instead, the Gulf is a localised representation of the impact of global regimes of ethnonationalist exclusion on the acceptance and integration of migrants and the enjoyment of the benefits therefrom (Vora and Koch, 2015: 548). This is important in understanding that the impact of current sovereignty-based systems of immobility and migrant exclusion is replicated across countries, cultures, and continents in different strands, which embody core tenets of race and nationality-based exclusion (Carens, 2003; Kanna et al., 2020: 79–80).
The effects of racial capitalism tie in with the counteracting part of horizontal racialisation, that is, positive racialisation. Although the kafala system may represent a system of subordination and oppression for some, it provides privileges and pleasure for others, allowing them to live a relatively more luxurious life than they would typically enjoy in their home countries. Western migrants in Doha are hired for their ‘whiteness’ and perceived expertise on much more favourable terms than migrants from the global south. This affords them the luxuries of relying on migrants from the global south for domestic and personal service, making them active participants and beneficiaries of a system of racial capitalism, hierarchies, subordination and inequality (Vora and Koch, 2015: 546).
The differential impact of labour migration governance systems and racial stereotyping coalesce to separate low-skilled migrants and high-skilled migrants on different levels, including through spatial and social segregation. Migrant social and spatial segregation is a form of racialised geographical ordering, regulation and confinement of migrant spaces. Areas designated as ‘family spaces’ or days set aside as ‘family days’ exclude Qatar's ‘bachelor builders’ and other low-skilled migrants from participating in leisure activities by systematically denying them entry to leisure and cultural facilities (Finn, 2016; Pattisson, 2016). Exclusion of this sort disproportionately affects low-skilled migrant workers, as an overwhelming majority are single-unit migrants, violating Article 5(e)(vi) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Likewise, spatial segregation delimits Qatari residents and reinforces racialised social hierarchies.
Socio-spatial segregation manifests the dual nature of differential racialisation. Horizontally, migrants are racialised as outsiders carrying varying levels of threat to Qatari culture and society. Vertically, the threat level differs across classes and social hierarchies based on the presence or absence of families, which are also reinforced by state-created rental market regulations (Nagy, 2006: 125). Article 1 of Qatar's Law No 15 of 2010 on the Prohibition of Workers Camps within Family Residential Areas (Law No 15 of 2010) prevents landlords, real estate agents, developers, and employers and their representatives from renting properties in designated family residential areas to groups of workers (Law No 15 of 2010). Defining the nature of exclusion, Article 2 of the Decision of the Minister of Municipality and Urban Planning No 83 of 2011 regarding the determination of the areas of residence for families as amended by Ministerial Resolution No 151 of 2017 (Decision No 83 of 2011), delimits the spaces where ‘groups of workers’ can be allowed residence (Decision No 83 of 2011).
Although the laws do not specifically mention migrant workers, these provisions enhance the socio-spatial segregation of low-skilled bachelor migrant workers, mainly of South(east) Asian and African origin. The term bachelor is used as a racialised social category for adult male low-skilled labour migrants, who, by their characteristically single-unit migration, are considered bachelors once they arrive in the Gulf, regardless of their marital status back home (Kinninmont, 2013; Sarmadi, 2013: 198–200). Here, race, class, nationality and skill play an essential role in recognising the social reproductive status of migrants, reinforcing exclusion through the negative racial coding of differentially racialised groups.
Finally, it is also essential to consider the participation of citizens from the global south in maintaining institutions of racialised humiliation, discrimination and racial capitalism. As described above, racialised migration and job placements create a system where compatriots most likely manage low-skilled migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and South(east) Asia at every step of the migration journey as part of an extensive migration infrastructure (Vora and Koch, 2015: 545; Xiang and Lindquist, 2014).
Most low-skilled migrants will never personally interact with a Qatari sponsor for the duration of their employment in the Gulf; hence most employment hierarchies will not significantly differ from what is obtainable in their home countries. However, compatriots in supervisory and managerial roles act as conduits between the higher echelon of Qatari sponsors, project clients, high-level managers and the construction workers on site (Iskander, 2021). In some circumstances, they are the agents of control and coercion, whose words and decisions determine the day-to-day fate of compatriots and fellow global south migrant workers. However, these middlemen, especially those who manage migrant workers on construction sites, also work at the mercy of upper-level managers and Qatari sponsors. They also face similar threats of deportation and experience similar delays in payment, which ultimately result from political decision making and bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Racialised Vulnerabilities to Trafficking in Qatar
International human rights organisations (NGOs) and UN body reports have highlighted human trafficking for forced labour among Qatar's migrant worker population through wage delays and non-payment of wages, passport confiscation, longer working hours, contract substitution, and false accusations of absconding. In its 2019 Observations for Qatar, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination highlighted the vulnerabilities of migrant workers in Qatar to abuse and exploitation, such as non-payment or late payment of wages, confiscation of passports and pay disparity based on nationality (CERD, 2019, para. 15). The first port of call is almost always on Qatar's migrant labour regulation and governance system, that is, the kafala system, entrenched through Law No 4 of 2009 , and Law No 21 of 2015 . These laws have been the subject of much criticism, as the kafala system has been said to encourage slavery-like practices. In 2013, the International Trade Union Confederation and Building and Woodworkers International made a representation to the ILO Governing Body alleging Qatar's non-observance of the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No 29), which it ratified in 1998. Notably, the worker representative bodies claimed that Qatari kafala laws, which they alleged were the most restrictive in the region, contributed to forced labour and human trafficking (ILO, 2014, para. 49).
The central theme of the predominant discourse on human trafficking in Qatar highlights the systematic exclusion of migrant workers, especially low-skilled workers, from assimilating into the destination state. These include spotlighting the kafala system as a state-created vehicle of migrant hyper-dependency on local sponsors and employers that entrenches employment hyper-precarity through the asymmetrical power relationship between workers and their employers (Jeremiašová, 2021: 296; Zou, 2015). These perspectives have crystallised in calls for structural reform to labour systems in Qatar by abolishing or extensively reforming the kafala system. For example, UN member states have recommended that Qatar abolish or reform its kafala system at numerous Universal Periodic Review cycles (UNHRC, 2019). Hence, since 2015, Qatar has embarked on an extensive law reform process that has significantly changed the face of its labour migration regulatory framework.
However, as explained previously, the overrepresentation of particular migrant groups in job sectors prone to exploitation is considerably influenced by racial ideology and negative racial stereotyping. Nevertheless, race remains absent in these discussions. The 2001 World Conference Against Racism outcome document (Durban Declaration) identifies migrants as an at-risk group for vulnerability to xenophobia, a primary source of contemporary racism (UNOHCHR, 2002). The Durban Declaration also notes slavery and trafficking as sources, causes, forms, and contemporary manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, explicitly highlighting that victims of trafficking are exposed to racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia and related intolerance (UNOHCHR, 2002, paras. 29–30).
Exploring the relationship between racial othering and human trafficking, Jonathan Todres reinforces the view espoused in the Durban Declaration. Todres explains that by reinforcing notions of a ‘ … virtuous “Self” and the lesser “Other”, racial othering exacerbates risks for trafficking by attributing to the negatively racialised other characterisations that justify their differential treatment, abuse and exploitation, including through racial stereotyping” (Todres, 2009: 608). Racial stereotypes drive the undervaluation of the labour of South(east) Asians and sub-Saharan African migrants by dehumanising them and systematically undervaluing their labour. While Western and Arab migrants are hired for their perceived expertise, Achiume notes that South(east) Asian nationalities are presumed to be unsanitary and unintelligent (Achiume, 2020, para. 24). These stereotypes constitute nationality, class-based and racial coding-induced oppression, which increases vulnerability to trafficking through collective desensitisation (Bryant-Davis and Tummala-Narra, 2017: 156–158).
Racial oppression and racial coding exacerbate the commodification and exploitation of migrant labour in globalised capitalist systems (Chong, 2014: 204–208). This is relevant as Janie Chuang holds that human trafficking is primarily labour migration gone wrong, signifying a break in the globalised economy (Chuang, 2006: 138). Chaung's position is vital in understanding that the impact of race on human trafficking in Qatar and the rest of the GCC is not exclusive to the region but is significant to and replicated throughout different parts of the global economy as racialisation and capitalism are rarely divorced. Together, they combine to produce, among other things, profoundly hierarchical and exploitative migrant-citizen relationships. Capital accumulation in Qatar and the GCC is operated through negative stereotyping and the appropriation of migrant labour to lower the cost of labour in the GCC's development (Babar and Vora, 2022: 7–9).
The demand for cheap ‘rightless bachelor builders’ to undertake 4-D jobs (dirty, demeaning, dangerous and difficult) and for Western experts and professionals to undertake highly skilled roles relegates migrants from South(east) Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to the lower echelons of social stratification (İşcen, 2021: 2287). This further reduces the bargaining power of South(east) and sub-Saharan African migrants, increasing their vulnerability to precarious employment and heightened labour market vulnerabilities, worsening the risks of trafficking for labour exploitation (Shamir, 2012: 82). Widened labour asymmetries exacerbate human trafficking as Rana Jaleel notes that labour trafficking is a function of the relationship between workers and their work conditions (Jaleel, 2016: 569). For negatively racialised migrants at the end of labour and social stratifications, these widened asymmetries are more explicit in daily professional and personal lives. The general lack of access to labour protections such as collective bargaining, wage protections, or effective access to justice compounds their discrimination and increases their vulnerability to trafficking.
Racial bias and negative stereotypes in the globalised economy replicate class and occupation-based hierarchies in the Global West, which values passports from the global north over those from the global south. Racial bias and profiling also determine the spaces where negatively racialised migrants can access work, including sex work. Racial profiling of women in commercial sex work creates a racial hierarchy of sex workers, resulting in the racial spatialisation of sex work. Pardis Madhavi notes that racialised spatialisation in the United Arab Emirates apportions to lighter-skinned and often described as ‘white’ sex workers, more value, privilege and access to expensive bars and clubs than sub-Saharan and East African sex workers, who are overly represented in the poorer and more dangerous sex work spaces, consisting street work (Madhavi, 2010). The relative occupational safety experienced by sex workers at the higher end contrasts with the lack of safety experienced by workers on the streets.
However, racialisation also contributes to fashioning the ideal human trafficking victim who is often imagined without any agency, vulnerable, often deceived and physically or otherwise forced to engage in their own exploitation for the benefit of others. Madhavi notes that the racial spatialisation of commercial sex workers also impacts their access to protection. Sex workers on the lower ends are perceived as more vulnerable, fitting the image of the ideal trafficking victim in need of saving, hence having better access to local support services. In contrast, the relative privilege and value enjoyed by the sex workers on higher ends de-victimises them as ‘Jezebels’, who are predatory and deserving of punishment, even when workers may be victims of trafficking (Madhavi, 2010: 949–951). Racial bias and profiling perpetuate mutually reinforcing outcomes for differentially racialised groups where positive racialisation grants access to privilege but, at the same time, risks negatively racialising sex workers as agentic bad actors not deserving any protection.
Cheryl Nelson Butler expands on the impact of race and racism in the context of sex trafficking of women and girls of colour in the United States (Butler, 2015). Beyond the relationship between the disproportionate representation of women of colour as victims of trafficking in the commercial sex industry and the history of racial subordination of people of colour, racialisation also contributes to developing human trafficking response mechanisms. Negative racial profiling of black and brown women paints them as ‘Jezebels’ deserving of punishment rather than protection, limiting the ability of law enforcement to effectively distinguish between illegal prostitution and trafficking for forced prostitution. Hence, law enforcement officials in the United States more often target women and girls of colour for arrest and harassment than their white counterparts, despite the fact that they may be victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation (Butler, 2015: 1499).
Profiling further negatively impacts the ability of victims of trafficking to self-identify or report abuse and violations to authorities. Racial bias and stereotyping by law enforcement contributed to the re-victimisation of trafficking victims in Qatar, as evidenced by ‘absconding laws’ in the kafala system that required employers and sponsors to report migrant workers who leave employment without permission from their employer ( Law No. 4 of 2009 , Article 24(1)). This system of diffused coercive control, where employers and sponsors were deputised as immigration and labour officers, encourages illegal and exploitative practices such as the confiscation of passports and other work and residence permits, and the increased surveillance of migrant workers, including through the illegal restriction of their mobility (Fernandez, 2021: 4355). This forces low-skilled migrants to remain in situations of coercion and forced labour. However, when victims escape vulnerable situations, they are rendered irregular migrants without viable means of identification, leaving them susceptible to abuse and harassment by law enforcement, further heightening their exploitation. Here, the state plays a role in entrenching racial prejudice and institutionalising violence that exacerbate the risks of trafficking (Bravo, 2015: 23).
Although ‘absconding’ was criminalised under Qatari migrant sponsorship laws, Qatar's anti-trafficking legislation notes that ‘Victims of human trafficking offences (HTO) shall not themselves be subject to criminal or civil liabilities arising from that crime so long as these liabilities directly relate to that HTO’ ( Law No. 15 of 2011 , Article 4). Furthermore, Article 24 of Law No 15 of 2011 Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings exempts victims of trafficking from punishment for crimes committed under Law No 4 of 2009, that is, absconding ( Law No. 15 of 2011 , 2011, p. Article 24). In their respective reports on Qatar, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism highlighted the disproportionate representation of low-skilled migrants from South(east) Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in detention centres awaiting deportation for absconding (Achiume, 2020, para. 28 36 37; Crepeau, 2014, para. 56). Here, two contradictory provisions give the States the discretion to choose which laws to apply. As shown above, they have mostly tilted towards criminalising escape and disproportionately applied this to South(east) Asian and sub-Saharan African migrants.
Human trafficking in Qatar is also exacerbated by the systemic isolation and racially driven socio-spatial segregation of migrant workers from the global south, most of whom work in the construction sector. Robina Mohammed and James Sidaway note that socio-spatial segregation in Qatar is initially a function of migration control and social and racial diversity management (Mohammad and Sidaway, 2016: 1350). However, machineries of migration control, diversity and social management through socio-spatial segregation disproportionately affect groups who, due to low wages and migration and sponsorship regulations and restrictions, cannot migrate with their families and cannot afford to rent apartments in affluent neighbourhoods. Law No 15 of 2010 and Decision No 83 of 2011 create these segregated socio-spatial spheres that confine most of Qatar's low-skilled migrant worker populations to labour camps located far away from the other well-planned residential areas where Qatari citizens and the primarily Western highly skilled migrants who work in highly skilled roles reside (Vora, 2015: 171).
Labour camps in Qatar aremainly employer-provided andcannot support family unit migration or housing (Le et al., 2019: 77). Pun Ngai refers to employer-controlled labour camps as dormitory labour regimes, which control workers’ private and productive lives (Ngai, 2016: 86–87). Employer-provided labour camps in Qatar extend the employer's control over the migrant workers beyond the productive spheres of the Industrial City and construction sites in Doha to the private spheres of rest and recreation (Andrijasevic, 2021: 419). It also moves the power asymmetries between employer and worker beyond the productive spaces to the private spaces of workers. These racially influenced and state-created biopolitical control mechanisms of domination drive the coercive control of migrant workers, entrenching vulnerability to exploitation, including trafficking, beyond productive spaces (Bruslé, 2012: 417).
The general location of labour camps away from the main cities operationalises distance in developing racialised exclusion and control mechanisms. Distance is weaponised as an agent of racialised systemic socio-spatial segregation and isolation to limit workers’ freedom of movement by confining them to farther locations without adequate means of transit. The operationalisation of distance removes the exploitation and lived experiences of negatively racialised low-skilled migrant workers in Qatar from the view and reality of most of the positively racialised migrants and Qatari citizens. The camps also limit frequent cross-class migrant solidarity (International Trade Union Confederation, 2014: 2–5). Artificially created isolation deepens workers’ dependence on their employers for movement in and out of the camps, making it difficult for workers to leave for reasons of unfair treatment since accommodation may be tied to employment. Distance further limits workers’ ability to pursue legal and other forms of redress for labour and human rights violations, acting as a barrier to adequate access to justice (Andrijasevic and Novitz, 2020: 203), limiting workers’ agency by coercing them to remain in exploitative situations.
Conclusion
The ongoing reforms to labour and migration regulations in Qatar, evident in the introduction of legislation and policies that afford migrants an increased level of industrial citizenship, are vital to eliminating trafficking. Since 2017, Qatar has adopted legislation that allows migrant workers to switch employers during their employment contract's lifetime and leave the country without a No-Objection Certificate from their employer, effectively reducing the link and asymmetry between employer/sponsor and the migrant worker. New legislation also guarantees a non-discriminatory minimum wage for all workers ( Decree No 25 of 2020 , 2020; ILO, 2022: 9), although complaints have emerged citing the insufficiency of the new minimum wage provisions as well as the lingering wage gap between migrants across skill and nationality classifications (Migrant-Rights.org, 2020; Migrants-Rights.org, 2017; Noah, 2020). These recent labour reforms in Qatar seek to rectify the power differential between citizens and non-citizens by affording migrant workers inclusion through industrial citizenship, where access to actual citizenship is non-existent or, at best, extensively limited.
Granting access to industrial citizenship through labour reforms has been contended by labour law scholars as the most efficient response to human trafficking for labour exploitation, primarily where trafficking occurs in socially and industrially excluded migrant worker populations (Ben-Israel, 2022; Bravo, 2008). This article does not argue this premise. However, it contends that understanding exclusion within binaries, such as those elucidated by access to citizenship and the lack thereof, does not highlight the why of exclusion. Although exclusion is identifiable within citizen and non-citizen binaries, other drivers of exclusion, including race-based drivers, occur to support those binaries. Hence, while the anti-trafficking focus should remain on creating structures that uphold decent work and safe migration for all migrant workers, the impact of race on fashioning structures of exploitation and segregation cannot continue to be overlooked.
Addressing structural issues of race and exclusion is vital in reshaping institutional biases, stereotypes, othering and exclusion that make low-skilled workers from South(east) Asia and sub-Saharan Africa vulnerable to trafficking. It is even more critical when laws support racial ideologies and practices. For example, laws that segregate housing do not always feature in the anti-trafficking discourse in Qatar. Still, they are racially driven forms of segregation that increase vulnerability to trafficking, existing entirely outside labour, recruitment and migration frameworks. This brings the problem back to the state's doorstep, as policies of exclusion, othering, and segregation that exacerbate risks of human trafficking should be considered state-created vulnerabilities and should feature in strategies to eliminate trafficking (Fouladvand and Ward, 2019; Murphy, 2017). Including a race and racialisation perspective highlights these gaps and pushes for more holistic anti-trafficking efforts that move beyond the dominant criminal justice, labour, migration and human rights protection perspectives.
Racialisation is not only a function of legal norms as social norms also define citizen attitudes towards migrants. Citizens’ attitudes towards others are crucial to eliminating or entrenching trafficking (Bravo, 2017: 212). Effective law reform does not end in changing legal text or eliminating problematic legal provisions from the law but in the holistic reformation of individual behaviours (Rachif Filali, 2010: 50–55). Centring race in the human trafficking discourse in Qatar spotlights the differential treatment of migrants based on nationality, class, education, and skill level in law and quotidian practices. It supports the understanding of the different manifestations of exclusion and the trailing legacies of colonialism instituted segregation. However, it is vital to note that Qatar and the GCC are not exceptional cases.
Various forms of racially driven exclusion are prevalent in different parts of the world. Whether in capitalist systems in the global north that subordinate black and brown peoples to precarious work in the informal sector or the stereotyping of negatively racialised black, brown, and indigenous women and girls to sex sector trafficking, the role of race is visible as a critical factor in the exploitation of perceived others. Different anti-trafficking perspectives, such as the labour and migration approaches, have become prevalent in challenging the predominant criminal justice and human rights protection anti-trafficking frames, advocating for a more holistic understanding of human trafficking. To achieve this, underlying structures that embed vulnerabilities for certain groups worldwide must be a significant consideration. While race and racialisation may not be the root cause of every manifestation of trafficking as trends of exploitation differ globally, anti-trafficking scholars and practitioners need to move beyond the binaries of labour versus capital, north versus south, citizen versus non-citizen, and agency versus vulnerability to uncover and address these underlying structures.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not represent the official or unofficial position or endorsement of any organisations that the author is associated with.
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Funding
The author received financial support from the University of Galway PhD scholarship for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.
