Ashraf, an Egyptian working in Kuwait, lost all his income as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s curfew was eased two months ago, but for Ashraf there was little respite. While other areas of the oil-rich sheikhdom opened up, the taxi driver endured a total lockdown in a suburb close to Kuwait City’s airport popular with foreign workers, which only reopened on Sunday. Taxi services, suspended in March, are scheduled to restart on Tuesday. Public transport, almost exclusively used by foreigners, has been halted for months. Ashraf believes his plight has been made worse by Kuwait’s attitude towards foreign workers. “We feel the lockdown is deliberate, to make us have no work, to push us out,” he said. “Social media is full of [anti-expatriate] comments. We know they want us to leave.”
The coronavirus outbreak has shone a spotlight on the treatment of millions of foreign workers across the oil-rich Gulf. Many have lost their jobs as businesses have closed, and thousands have left. Now there are questions about how many will return and whether Gulf governments will use the crisis to improve workers’ conditions. In Kuwait, where expatriate workers make up 70 per cent of the population, resentment against foreigners is on the rise. Animosity towards Egyptians, many of whom compete with Kuwaitis for government jobs, is particularly virulent.
The antipathy, fuelled by competition for coveted public sector work and growing pressure on public services, came to the boil during the lockdown, with parliament approving several draft laws aimed at cutting the number of foreign workers. “It is discrimination against expats,” said Ashraf. “The government is working to get expats out.” The popular Kuwaiti actress Hayat Al Fahad even suggested sick foreigners should be left “in the desert” rather than taken to hospital. “Why, if their countries do not want them, should we deal with them?”