Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

From the Kafala to Human Trafficking: Migrant Domestic Work Across the Globe

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is the Doris Stevens Professor in Women’s Studies and Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University

This talk provides a global overview of the labor exploitation faced by migrant domestic workers. It demonstrates how these workers share a legal status as bound laborers who cannot easily leave their jobs, rendering them uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. Across the globe, migrant domestic workers operate under systems where their legal status mandates they work solely for a specific sponsor and, for the most part, live in their employer’s home. This reality suggests that the kafala—or a kafala-like system—is not unique to the Middle East, but is instead a global condition of labor.

This structural binding reveals that migrant women, who make up the vast majority of this workforce, are not treated as independent economic migrants, but are instead legally reduced to household dependents. This status severely limits their ability to participate in a free labor market, preventing them from seeking higher salaries or better labor standards, while simultaneously leaving them highly exposed to abuse.

The kafala grants employers tremendous, unchecked power over domestic workers, and individual employers respond to this power differently. While some choose to mitigate it, others ignore it, and some actively take advantage of it. This wide variation in daily labor conditions indicates that the kafala does not automatically result in oppression. However, it is precisely this variation that proves the inherent vulnerability of workers under the kafala: except for their own personal morals, employers are not subject to institutional forces that limit their power. It is this absolute reliance on employer morality, rather than standardized legal protection, that ultimately makes these workers unfree.

This program is hosted by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. In addition, this program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is the Doris Stevens Professor in Women’s Studies and Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of numerous articles and books including Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States, which received the 2023 American Sociological Association Distinguished Book Prize. A scholar of economic sociology, the global economy, gender, and labor, she was recognized for her contributions to the advancement of gender with the 2019 American Sociological Association Jessie Bernard Award. She is currently writing a book that provides an origin story on the global migration of nurses from the Philippines.