SO, you sign a contract turn up for work only to find that the job was not what you had signed up for. Not only has the job changed, but the agreed salary has been reduced. Naturally you are upset, but you are told firmly that you have no say in the matter and your only choice is to settle in and work out the remainder of your term under the new memorandum of understanding to which you never consented. What would you do?Most people resentfully buckle in under threat and comply. But for those who choose to rightfully complain and ask to be released — they get charged with absconding and end up in jail for months with their passports held by their employers.
Migrante International, a human rights group has recently pleaded with the Filipino Embassy in Kuwait to assist with the release and repatriation of 36 workers who are in jail on the charge of absconding. These men have been in jail for several months and are desperate to return home to be with their families. What is their crime? To protest the terms of a contract that they never agreed to in the first place.Absconding is when an employee breaks the terms of their contract and runs away. Given that Kuwait is a small country it is understandable that there is a desire for some kind of population control. However, how does one protect the abuse of vulnerable workers by unscrupulous employers?
The reality is that the charge of absconding has become the standard ploy whenever an employer decides that they have had enough of their workers. The police are unable to make a distinction between a genuine grievance and an employer who simply marches into a station and hands his employees over for arrest. The police have become unwilling accomplices in solving the problem of unwanted labour. Although Kuwaiti law insists that the employer is liable for repatriating their own workers, in reality, some employers absolve their responsibilities by playing the ‘absconding’ card. The result is overstretched and under-resourced embassies deluged with labour complaints and little means of challenging the process. I can’t help think of the ‘golden rule’ first spoken by Jesus Christ, “Do unto others what you would have them do to you” Is absconding a crime? Sure it is — but who is the criminal?
