Vol. VII / No. 12 | August 2026
Authors:
Muhammad Atiqurrahman, Sania Idayu Virginia & Izzadin Rashaad Lubis – Undergraduate Program Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia
Summary
Gulf countries have consistently remained as a major destination for migrant workers from Southeast Asia. Despite ASEAN’s longstanding commitments to migrant worker protection, exploitation and violation of migrant workers continue to happen under a sponsorship mechanism known as the Kafala System. This article showcases ASEAN’s institutional challenges in protecting its citizens abroad. Existing regional mechanisms rely heavily on non-binding norms and bilateral diplomacy, limiting ASEAN’s ability to collectively influence labour governance beyond Southeast Asia.
Keywords: Kafala system, Gulf country, Migrant Worker, Rights, Consensus
Introducing The Kafala System
Over the past few decades, Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman have become major destinations for migrant workers from Southeast Asia (Varia, 2008). In 2024, around 4.3 million ASEAN migrants were located in Western Asia, with the Gulf states serving as key destinations particularly for Filipino and Indonesian workers (International Labour Organization, 2025).
An important point to highlight is that many of these workers are employed under the Kafala system, a labor sponsorship system widely practiced across the Gulf countries. Under this system, migrant workers are only allowed to enter and work in a Gulf country if they have a sponsor who is responsible for their visa, residence permit, employment contract, and repatriation (Malaeb, 2015). As a result, migrant workers become highly dependent on their sponsors and are often unable to freely change jobs, leave the country, or maintain their legal status without employer approval.
Domestic workers often face greater exposure to exploitation and abuse under this system. As domestic work is often viewed as low-skilled labor, legal protections for domestic workers tend to be much weaker than those in formal sectors. Their vulnerability is further intensified by the fact that they work within private households, where state oversight is limited, access to legal assistance remains constrained, and cases of abuse are often difficult to detect (Malaeb, 2015). Many workers also remain trapped in exploitative working conditions due to migration-related debt, fear of losing income, or concerns about being sent home without financial gains (Longva, 1999).
The high number of human rights violations against migrant workers in Gulf countries, which include forced labor, unpaid wages, human trafficking, physical abuse, and sexual harassment, highlights a prevalent issue with said system (Malaeb, 2015). Data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows that human trafficking has become a serious threat along migration routes to GCC countries. In the UAE, for example, the government identified 121 trafficking victims between 2024 and 2025, including victims from Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines (U.S. Department of States, 2025). This situation is particularly ironic given that recent data shows Gulf countries remain highly dependent on migrant labor (International Organization for Migration, 2024). By exposing millions of ASEAN migrants to persistent exploitation and human rights violations, the Kafala system presents a challenge that extends beyond individual states and demands a more coordinated regional response.
ASEAN’s Framework for Migrant Protection
ASEAN’s institutional response to migrant worker protection rests on two principal instruments, the 2007 Cebu Declaration (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2012) and the 2017 ASEAN Consensus (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2017), both of which set out shared principles for sending and receiving states within Southeast Asia. Neither instrument imposes binding legal obligations on member states, and both remain confined in practice to intra-regional labour flows rather than the far larger corridors connecting Southeast Asia to the Gulf.
Adopted at the 12th ASEAN Summit in January 2007, the Cebu Declaration asked receiving and sending states to uphold the dignity of migrant workers, cooperate on cases involving undocumented workers through no fault of their own, and facilitate consular access for workers in detention (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2007). As a declaration rather than a treaty, it carried no enforcement mechanism and explicitly avoided regularising the status of undocumented workers. By tasking ASEAN bodies with developing a follow-up instrument, a mandate that took a full decade to fulfil. That same follow-up process led to the establishment of the ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers (ACMW), the sectoral body that has carried this agenda ever since (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2022).
The ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers was eventually signed at the 31st ASEAN Summit in Manila on 14 November 2017, under the Philippines’ ASEAN chairmanship (International Labour Organization, 2017). The consensus affirms protection against passport confiscation and excessive recruitment fees, guarantees fair remuneration and safe working conditions, and recognises migrant workers’ right to join trade unions (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2017). Yet it remains, by ASEAN’s own description, a “living and evolving document” precisely because it is not legally binding (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2017). Implementation was left to a subsequent Action Plan (2018-2025) which the ACMW oversees and periodically reviews through member states’ self-assessments (International Labour Organization, 2020).
The ACMW convenes regularly as a subsidiary body under the ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting, its sixteenth meeting in Jakarta in 2023 being one recent example, to track the Action Plan’s progress and coordinate new instruments (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2023). In recent years, ASEAN has adopted several supplementary declarations that broaden this framework’s scope, including instruments on the portability of social security benefits, the protection of migrant workers and their families during crises, and the placement of migrant fishers (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2023). ASEAN has also institutionalised the ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour, an annual multi-stakeholder platform, first convened in 2008, that brings together governments, employers, workers’ organisations, and civil society to generate policy recommendations (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2022). These developments show a framework that keeps expanding in ambition. Yet, every instrument in it remains a declaration, a consensus, or a work plan rather than a binding legal commitment, and its design still centres on labour mobility within Southeast Asia.
In practice, however, the protection of ASEAN migrant workers in the Gulf has continued to depend primarily on bilateral diplomacy. Following the 2018 diplomatic dispute over the treatment of Filipino domestic workers, the Philippines negotiated a bilateral agreement with Kuwait that introduced stronger protections for domestic workers (Government of the Republic of the Philippines & Government of the State of Kuwait, 2018). Likewise, Indonesia resumed the deployment of domestic workers to Saudi Arabia only after securing additional labour protection measures through bilateral negotiations after the enforcement of its moratorium (Naila, 2026). These initiatives demonstrate that bilateral diplomacy can improve protections for migrant workers, but their benefits remain confined to the nationals of individual negotiating states rather than establishing common regional standards across ASEAN.
Only recently has ASEAN begun engaging the Gulf as a bloc. The inaugural ASEAN-GCC Summit, held in Riyadh in October 2023, produced a joint statement in which both sides agreed to encourage cooperation on orderly and safe labour mobility and to jointly counter trafficking linked to recruitment practices (Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Gulf Cooperation Council, 2023). This commitment sits within the broader GCC-ASEAN Framework of Cooperation (2024-2028), and the relationship was elevated again at the second ASEAN-GCC Summit in Kuala Lumpur in May 2025, though its accompanying declaration concentrated overwhelmingly on trade, investment, and energy cooperation rather than labour protection (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2025). Neither summit has yet produced a dedicated instrument on migrant worker protection comparable to the Cebu Declaration or the ASEAN Consensus.
ASEAN’s Future Role in Migrant Worker Protection
Given these institutional limitations, ASEAN’s most realistic contribution lies not in creating new legal obligations, but in strengthening regional coordination. Because labour-sending states continue to negotiate separately with Gulf countries, ASEAN member states have yet to leverage their collective position as one of the world’s largest sources of migrant labour (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2023). A more coordinated regional approach could help harmonize protection standards, facilitate information sharing among member states, and strengthen ASEAN’s collective voice in engagements with Gulf Countries. By coordinating common priorities before engaging external partners, ASEAN would also be better positioned to reduce disparities in protection among its member states and encourage more consistent labour governance across migration corridors to the Gulf.
Rather than establishing new institutions, ASEAN could make greater use of existing mechanisms such as the ACMW. Although the ACMW currently functions primarily as a consultative body, its existing mandate provides a foundation for deeper cooperation among member states. Beyond facilitating dialogue, it could serve as a platform for exchanging best practices, coordinating responses to emerging labour rights concerns, and promoting more consistent approaches to migrant worker protection in engagements with destination countries. Expanding the ACMW’s coordinating role would strengthen regional cooperation without departing from ASEAN’s principle of non-interference.
The 2026 Philippine Chairmanship presents a timely opportunity to advance this agenda. As one of ASEAN’s largest migrant-sending countries, with around 10% of its population working abroad, the Philippines has a robust repertoire of migrant protection mechanisms (Asis, 2017). Its leading role in regional cooperation, such as the Cebu Declaration, serves as a paramount proof of this nation’s commitment to protecting migrant workers (Presidential Communication Office, 2026). Although ASEAN cannot reform the Kafala system on its own, strengthening the role of the ACMW could enable it to serve as a pivotal mechanism for coordinating ASEAN member states’ diplomatic leverage and aligning their external engagement with the region’s longstanding commitment to protecting millions of Southeast Asian migrant workers.