Antislavery Usable Past

Shona

2002 (Narrative date)

There are an estimated 6000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in Kuwait (GSI 2018). Men and women migrate from South and Southeast Asia, Egypt, the Middle East, and increasingly throughout Africa to work in Kuwait, predominantly in the domestic service, construction, hospitality, and sanitation sectors. The vast majority of migrant workers arrive voluntarily; however, upon arrival some sponsors subject migrants to forced labour, including through non-payment of wages, protracted working hours without rest, deprivation of food, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as confinement to the workplace and the withholding of passports. Many of the migrant workers arriving in Kuwait have paid exorbitant fees to labour recruiters in their home countries or are coerced into paying labour broker fees in Kuwait which, according to Kuwaiti law, should be paid by the employer—a practice making workers highly vulnerable to forced labour, including debt bondage. To a lesser extent, migrant women are also subjected to forced prostitution.

Shona travelled to Kuwait looking for work. Recruited through a woman, Josna, Shona was forced in to sex work. Shona’s original contract was for 3 years, but when Josna asked her husband if he wished to extend his wife’s stay aboard for another 2 years, he agreed without consulting her, forcing Shona to remain in Kuwait.

In 5 years, I sent 3,00,000 taka to my husband. He bought land, built a house, did everything in his name. I kept nothing for myself. This is because I went abroad to improve my relationship with my husband and because he sent me. Over there, I had to do sex work. Once I "accepted", my salary increased. But inside myself, I could not find peace. I just thought when would it all be over. I counted the days. I was always tense. On the day I heard I was being released, I thanked Allah a thousand times. I was so happy I couldn’t tell you. I was liberated from a jail. It was like a second birth.

You have to make yourself so small. You always live in fear. Only I know this. Everybody cannot accept this work. I am one of those who inwardly could never accept. They forced me to do it. I take God as a witness.

Narrative located in the report ‘Beyond Boundaries: A Critical Look at Women Labour Migration and the Trafficking Within’ by Thérèse Blanchet provided courtesy of The Child Protection Hub

Country

Kuwait (slavery location)

Theme

Sexual exploitation

Type

Narrative

Tags

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: [email protected]. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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