Kuwait’s Interior Ministry has issued a new circular restricting domestic worker recruitment to 10 approved source countries — including Sri Lanka — while prohibiting hiring from 27 others, the Daily Mirror and Ada Derana reported on Wednesday.
Under the directive, domestic workers may be recruited from Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Nepal, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Benin, South Africa and Senegal, where recruitment is limited to male workers only. Recruitment procedures will be handled through Kuwait’s governorates.
The circular was distributed to residency affairs departments and service centres and took effect after a recent update. The 27-country ban list spans Asian and African states including Madagascar, Bhutan, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Togo, Malawi, Chad, Djibouti, Niger, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Angola. For some countries the restriction applies only to female domestic workers, with male recruitment still permitted. The decision was adopted on recommendations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health and the Public Authority for Manpower.
The directive secures formal Kuwaiti market access for Sri Lanka in a regulated category — a Gulf labour corridor that has long been a significant source of remittances. Kuwait was a notable destination for Sri Lankan domestic workers before pandemic-era contractions and remains one of the receiving countries flagged by the Department of Foreign Employment as part of the inbound migration policy review.
The announcement comes weeks after Sri Lanka’s Senake Kariyawasam was re-elected to chair the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers in Geneva. Sri Lankan officials have not yet commented on the Kuwait directive.
Sources: Daily Mirror; Ada Derana.
