Urmila Bhoola; The United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery
This past fall the BBC reported that domestic workers in the Gulf area of the Middle East are being bought and sold online through a number of different apps making up an illegal black market. These apps, which include 4Sale (an app for domestic servants in Kuwait) and Haraj (an app for domestic servants in Saudi Arabia), are approved and available in Apple’s App Store as well as Google Play. Furthermore, BBC News Arabic also found many servants being sold via Instagram advertised through different hastags and sold via direct messaging. The United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Urmila Bhoola, said "If Google, Apple, Facebook or any other companies are hosting apps like these, they have to be held accountable… what they are doing is promoting an online slave market.”
Kafala System
To completely understand the gravity of the situation it’s important to understand some background. Domestic workers are legal in the Gulf area as long as they are at least 21 years old, with workers being brought into a country through an agency and officially registered with the government. But, “Potential employers pay the agencies a fee and become the official sponsor of the domestic worker. Under what is known as the Kafala system, a domestic worker cannot change or quit her job, nor leave the country without her sponsor's permission.” (BBC) Of course, this system provides the opportunity for many immigrants trying to find a job in the Gulf area to be exploited. What makes these platforms illegal is they bypass the agencies in place to protect workers from exploitation and directly sell sponsorship from one person to another. Furthermore, many of the servants being sold illegally on these platforms are still children under the 21 year-old age limit.
After the BBC alerted the companies, Facebook banned one of the hashtags on Instagram involved with advertising servants for sale and Google and Apple both agreed they would work with app developers to prevent further illegal activity, but BBC News Arabic reported that “there are many related listings still active on Instagram, and other apps available via Apple and Google.”
BY: Griffin Pitt