The al-kafala is an ancient Islamic institution that was created for the good. It originates from the principle that allows adoption inside the Islam, as escamotage: the transmission of the lineage is, in fact, forbidden by Islamic law and, in this way, it is possible to protect the defenseless people. Leaving aside the paternalistic accent, a form of Kafala still exists today, and it is used to regulate migrant work. This once tutorship-oriented system of laws has become the shady cover of the migration processes in most Gulf Countries and has slowly turned itself into some kind of modern slavery. And it is legal inside the Islamic Shar’ia frameworks, which makes it difficult to get challenged. One of its main features is the revocation of the passport, operated by the legal tutor (the employer) at the expenses of their own dependents and which puts them in the hands of whoever offers them a job and who ends, eventually, to own them.
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