Human Organization
Volume 73, Number 3 / Fall 2014
http://sfaa.metapress.com/content/j2q1g276gm72/?p=76f6fdab022e4b4bbf2f1e6c69dbd88c&pi=0

Ethiopian Labor Migrants and the “Free Visa” System in Qatar
Silvia Pessoa1, Laura Harkness2, Andrew M. Gardner3
1English and Socio-linguistics, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar
2Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar
3University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington
Abstract
Labor migrants in Qatar and neighboring states are regulated and governed by the kafala, or sponsorship system. By law, all foreign migrants are locked to a particular sponsor-employer for the duration of their stay. While the kafala has been a central feature in analyses of migration throughout the region, little attention has been devoted to the informal and widespread “free visa” system that has arisen in the shadows of the kafala. Through a mixed methods approach utilizing the region’s first representative sample of low-income labor migrants, a focus group with “free visa” holders in the Ethiopian community, and a set of semi-structured interviews with Ethiopian migrants, this paper explores the experiences and perspectives of Ethiopian migrants in the “free visa” system in Qatar. The “free visa” is neither free nor legal, and it produces significant vulnerabilities for transnational migrants who work under this arrangement. While those vulnerabilities characterize the lived experience of “free visa” holders, many transnational migrants opt for the “free visa” in order to secure the freedom to choose their employer and abandon exploitative situations. We conclude that the “free visa” system can be understood as a byproduct of the strictures of the sponsorship system.