Reverend Dr Princess Ocansey, an International Immigration expert at the African Union Labor Migration Advisory Committee has cautioned the government to abolish ‘Kafala’, a sponsorship system that is used to monitor migrant labourers, working primarily in the construction and domestic sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council member states and a few neighbouring countries in the Middle East.
“Africa needs the jobs but we don’t need ‘Kafala’. And I came here to speak truth to power, we must abolish ‘Kafala’. No African leader should sign anymore ‘Kafala’ agreements.”
She made this call whiles speaking during an interview, where she made known that, it was a system that had been in existence for quite a long time.
“ ‘Kafala’ started in the 1950’s when the Middle Eastern countries started to come into oil. ‘Kafala’ actually means adoption. In the Islamic law its means to take care of an orphan, but it was stretched into the foreign workers system and it went bad. So, the ‘Kafil’ is the sponsor and the ‘Makfil’ is the orphan. And the responsibility of the ‘Kafil’ is to provide everything for the orphan. And so, this orphan belongs to them, its not an employer and employee relationship, its really a master and slave relationship.”
Fortunately, she said that, some countries have reformed systems due to international pressures put on them to abolish the system and put a new system in place
She said these reforms have seen countries like Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE) abolishing the ‘Kafala’ system and putting new measures in place.
“UAE has put a new system called ‘Tadbir’ (Spectacular), and this is a system where, there is no sexual harassment, and it allows the inspectors to come into your home whereas other places like Lebanon, you cannot go into their homes.”
She further went on to say that, the Asian countries have a multilateral platform with the middle east, and on that platform, they have been able to put systems in place that take care of their people and have ruled out ‘Kafala’.
She then said that, the government of Ghana has signed a ‘Tadbir’ agreement, but because of the ban, the ‘Tadbir’ is not operational adding that, it is important for the ban to be lifted and ‘Tadbir’ made operational, because outside of that, ‘Kafala’ is ruling and these are the results are not good.
She then warned Ghanaians that, visa 20 is ‘Kafala’ that is being practiced in Kuwait, so if they receive such visas they should rescind their decision to go.
Ghana’s Ambassador to Egypt, Dr Winfred Nii Okai Hammond also speaking said his outfit had returned 2,262 Ghanaians from Lebanon to Ghana with the governments support.
He also revealed that, a lot of them at that time had run away from where they were and were being sort after by the police and this had some of them hiding and sleeping on the streets.
He noted that, when he met with the Lebanese government, they were ready to let stranded Ghanaians go and also said they were ready to render their support.
Touching on expenses, the ambassador said, it was very expensive bringing the Ghanaians back home. He said as a result of the COVID which brought about the closure of the various airports, they had to provide shelter, foot hospital bills because many of them were unwell and had not been taken care of and other basic amenities for them in the interim.
It can be recalled that, on the 18th of September, the last batch of the total 2,262 Ghanaians were evacuated from Lebanon.
According to Ghana’s Ambassador to Egypt, Dr Winfred Nii Okai Hammond, out of the nine flights that flew to Ghana, three were paid flights whereas the six others, which had the evacuees, were fully sponsored by the government.
