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In Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, and elsewhere in the region migrant workers have their passport taken by the employer and thus can’t leave the country. They are stuck. In most other countries the employer does not confiscate your passport. It’s weird to me that one needs a passport to leave a country. In the U.S. you don’t need a passport to leave.

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Makes me think that the home countries are fairly complicit. Any country with robust consular services wouldn’t allow that to happen.

The US state department is happy to let governments know that US passports are property of the US government and may only be held under very limited circumstances. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/51.7#:~:text=CFR-,%C....

If you’ve ever been to a GCC country, you’ll notice that passport control when leaving is extremely long. It’s filled with South Asian men (and some women) who are put through the ringer by the officials and often pulled aside for extra questioning before being able to board a flight. They all seem to be on pins and needles

That's not legal, and it doesn't happen in cases of the kind of workers you are talking about. Taking passport or treating to be accused of rape and similar things happen (not commonly) to domestic workers and drivers. In occasions they buy the right of Kafala from the Kafil for a couple of $1000s and you leaving before your contract ends feel to them like a loss of money, I would say the situation here is indeed similar to slavery. For industry workers, every worker is replaceable and the company hiring you has 0 incentive to force you to stay.

The real issue in gulf is not paying livable wages mainly. Anything else is comparable to farm workers in Europe.

According to the following link confiscating of passports is common in Bahrain for migrant workers.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/30/bahrain-abuse-migrant-wo...

It is in fact illegal to confiscate for a private entity to confiscate a passport in most Western countries.

Unfortunately it's not well policed, many hotels and office receptions try to do so when they issue you a badge but I always refuse.

you still need the passport to enter anywhere else, even your home country

>you still need the passport to enter anywhere else, even your home country

Your home country can't refuse you entry, regardless of identification. Deportees don't get to stay in the US just because they lost their passport.

They can (and often do, at least for deportations from the UK) demand to see evidence that the deportee is, in fact, one of their citizens. Which can be difficult to prove without a passport. We have people who have been in immigration detention for years because they won't cooperate in getting an emergency travel document, or their 'home' country doesn't accept that they have a right of admission there.

A passport will allow you to go from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world and its usually hard to get.

"An emergency travelling document" will allow you to go from anywhere in the world to ONLY your home country and its usually easier to get.

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