In the year 2025, the United Arab Emirates still has one of the highest ratios of migrant workers in the world. The population of the country is divided into international migrants who represent almost 88 percent of the population which defines its economy and social structure. The biggest migrant populations include those of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Egypt and they control the industry of domestic service and construction and retail.
Such labor movements are regulated with the help of the Kafala system which is the legal framework according to which migrant workers are tied to their sponsors who are usually their employers. In this system, the approval of an employer is directly correlated with having a residency permit and work rights which creates an imbalance of power. Sponsors are legally entitled to deprive the workers of their right to switch jobs, relocate outside the country, as well as making complaints without facing retaliation. Along with the modern migration trends, the system that began its development at the beginning of the 20th century, its modern variant still poses serious difficulties in legal and ethical aspects.
This has resulted in very many exploitation cases that have been reported, including passport seizure, wage theft, and forced labor policies. The critics point out that the sponsorship model itself encourages abuse, which is why the system of labor governance in the UAE is not compatible with the international labor standards.
The Prevalence And Characteristics Of Labor Exploitation In The UAE
Although the Kafala system is still a structural issue, international monitoring reports make the real-world implications of the system more significant. According to the Global Slavery Index of 2023, it was estimated that 132,000 people in the UAE experienced conditions that are considered as modern slavery. This ranks the country as one of the ten in the whole world and second in the Arab region in terms of prevalence.
The construction and domestic work industries have some of the worst labor exploitations. The employees hired to work on significant infrastructure projects such as the Dubai Expo 2020 and other urban development projects often complain of unpaid salaries, unsafe working environments, and the lack of access to a court of law. Most of these atrocities disfavor the South Asian and East African workers in their disproportionate numbers.
The domestic workers are also highly vulnerable as they are in private and remote settings and are mostly migrants. These workers may be made to endure excessive work hours, abuse and even deprivation of compensation without there being explicit labor protection and the means of complaining. Household employment poses a threat of invisibility and impunity because of its closed and informal nature.
U.S. Human Rights Diplomacy: Balancing Geopolitics And Labor Rights
The United States is strategically related to the UAE through cooperation in defense-related aspects, coordination of counterterrorism, and business investment. This collaboration makes it difficult to deal with the violation of labor rights in a strong manner. Although the U.S. foreign policy reports regularly state that the US government supports the protection of labor rights around the world, when it comes to its allies, including the UAE, these principles become very contradictory.
The involvement of Washington in Kafala related matters has been a reserved affair, preferring to resort to under-the-table diplomacy, as opposed to speaking out. The human rights groups believe this hesitation undermines the U.S. human rights diplomacy. The U.S. is playing a dangerous game by seemingly letting exploitative behavior in the allied nations pass through its lips and conveying that its advocacy is only selective and convenient to geopolitics.
Since 2021, the UAE has made a number of small reforms, such as introducing digital labor contracts, making reforms to work transfer policies, and amending exit permit requirements. But these reforms are still procedural and have not been able to address the structural imbalance that is in the sponsorship system. There are also lobby groups such as Human Rights Watch and Migrant-Rights.org who insist that the U.S. should use its leverage more constructively to put an end to the Kafala model and support access to independent justice systems to migrants.
The Social And Economic Impact Of The Kafala System On Migrant Workers
Remittance opportunities do favor migrant workers in the UAE but their lives continue to be determined by the lack of social safety nets. Such employees are normally unable to take national health insurance, housing subsidies or pension programs. They are not only tolerated at work but not in the society, further entrenching a structural marginalization that influences their comfort and vision of security.
These systemic vulnerabilities were on the international stage revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic. With lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, thousands of workers were locked up in overcrowded labor camps with little access to sanitation or medical care. Some of them lost their jobs and were left without any income or legal assistance. In many cases of emergency repatriation programs, they did not provide compensation and many were left penniless and traumatized.
Such experiences have brought back international questioning of the labor governance in the Gulf and have criticized the strategic alliances especially the U.S. to align its strategic relations with ethical principles. The fact that Kafala is going to persist in 2025 still casts doubt on the architecture of global labor mobility and protection of migrants.
Strategic Alliances And Diplomatic Trade-offs
The U.S.-UAE relationship has been marked by multi-billion dollars weapons sales, intelligence cooperation, and collaborations in the gulf and Horn of Africa. Labor rights are a controversial topic because of these strategic interests. Analysts opine that the concept of labor diplomacy has in many cases been shunned to the back bench in favor of counterterrorism goals and stability policy in the region, especially in U.S. relations with the rich Gulf countries.
According to diplomatic cables and reports of independent think tanks the internal U.S. government estimates of the problem admit that they have the problem but stress a moderate course of action. A brief Congressional Research Service report in 2024 stated that there has been little progress on labor reform in the UAE despite continuing discussions in the U.S. indicating frustration among politicians and policymakers.
The conflict of values and interests is not a specific UAE occurrence. But the extent of exploitation, combined with the publicity of abuses and the global awareness of the Gulf, puts an especially strong pressure on Washington to do what renders its diplomatic speech consistent with real performance.
Regional Trends And Reform Pressures In The Gulf
Other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have independently made reforms on aspects of the Kafala system. An example is Qatar, which passed laws in 2020 and 2021 abolishing the need for permission by the employer in case of a change of job and exit visa. Although there is still an unequal implementation process, these reforms have been praised to be a regional model.
In comparison, the UAE has followed a piecemeal strategy that preserves the essence of the sponsor-employee relationship and alters some of the administrative practices. The global labor agencies such as ILO still urge the UAE to undertake to completely reform in line with the international labor standards.
The visibility of Gulf labor practices in global media and human rights forums contributes to pressure for broader reform. Worker protests, legal action by advocacy groups, and diplomatic criticism from countries of origin all signal that the Kafala system is facing growing resistance from multiple fronts.
Rethinking Global Migration Governance And Ethical Diplomacy
As the global economy becomes increasingly interdependent, the ethical governance of labor migration becomes a matter of international concern. Economic development of the UAE continues to depend on migrant labor, but the existing paradigm of regulation and exclusion is a reputational threat to the country and its strategic alliances.
The U.S. diplomacy issue does not concern the statements of human rights but the process of implementation of labor protections into its bilateral agendas and development assistance models. The intervention of civil society, independent media, and multilateral institutions in checking abuses and giving voice to the workers is always significant.
The Kafala system surviving in the UAE is the most eloquent evidence of the problems of geopolitics against values and human rights diplomacy in the world in general. To the U.S., this is a test of fire wherein the credibility of the U. S. as a champion of labor rights is pitted against strategic alliances. Since the migrant workers are yet to escape systemic exploitation that is deeply rooted in the system of sponsorship, the essential reform initiatives require a long-term dedication to diplomacy, an exceptionally strong enforcement tool, and the empowerment of civil society agents. The dynamic environment in 2025 is not only a problem of labor regulation in the region but a problem on the planet as a whole, where human dignity and justice have significantly high stakes.
