Kuwait to go tough on exploitation

The Kuwaiti government will take stern actions against local companies who delayed or went back on agreed salaries for Bangladeshi workers there, the Gulf state's deputy prime minister told the visiting foreign affairs adviser from Bangladesh yesterday.
AFP meantime reports that Kuwait's parliament will hold an emergency session on September 10 to debate the violent protests by expatriate Bangladeshi workers which they say "undermined Kuwait's reputation abroad."
"The Kuwaiti government would take stern measures against the Kuwaiti companies who had exploited the Bangladeshi workers", Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah told Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, according to a foreign ministry press release.
The adviser flew to Kuwait on a two-day official visit yesterday at the invitation of Sheikh Mohammed to discuss the recent unrests. Around 250,000 Bangladeshi workers now work in Kuwait.
"The behaviour of these companies such as non-payment of agreed salaries was unacceptable," Sheikh Mohammed, also Kuwait's foreign minister, said.
In reply, Iftekhar told him that Bangladesh would "act in vision to help to solve the problems."
Meantime, 35 MPs in the 50-member Kuwaiti parliament wrote to Speaker Jassem al-Khorafi to recall parliament from its summer recess because they felt the unrests could recur, according to AFP.
The MPs blamed the abuse of foreign workers, mostly Bangladeshis, on the so-called visa traders who facilitate the entry of foreigners into Kuwait for money without giving them jobs.
They also accused that some local companies failed to pay agreed salaries and delayed payment of wages for months.
Thousands of Bangladeshi workers, along with other Asian workers, went on strike in late July demanding better pay, improved work and living conditions.
The Kuwaiti government later deported 1,286 Bangladeshis for their alleged involvement in the demonstrations.
Following the strikes, the Gulf state introduced minimum wages of $150 a month for cleaners and $261 a month for security guards.