snap shot of life in Kuwait

Here’s a little story about life in Kuwait. A friend witnessed the following encounter and I consider him a reliable source so I feel comfortable sharing with you. All o the workers are called Third Country Nationals (TCN) which could include India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines to name a few. I would guess that makes a US citizen a First Country National. I’ve never heard of a Second Country National. Whatever. I need to Google that. Each apartment building has a haras which is pronounced harris, and he is the building handy-man. There is a building manager and he is a Kuwaiti with a nice office which is tucked away on the second floor away from the public.
So this particular story is about a haras who was having a fight with a little boy. The little boy kicked the haras in the groin. The man responded by slapping the boy. The boy ran off. The haras also ran off. Another haras came out. The boy came back with several female Kuwaitis and other children. The females were probably relatives and close friends of the boy and his mother. All the women and children began to beat the haras. They kicked him and hit him even after he was on the ground. If you were paying attention, you realize that this wasn’t even the original haras that committed the “offense”. Now we have no way of knowing if the 2 haras’ were related, or were friends, or were simply just countrymen. They both worked in the building by my friend. So the second haras took the beating for the first haras to allow him time to pack his bags and get to the airport. For you see, slapping the Kuwaiti was a crime punishable with jail time. My friend inquired later with his haras and found out that the fugitive successfully escaped and flew home to India. He can never return to Kuwait or he will face jail time. They will put a travel ban on his passport. He just lost his livelihood, his pay, his family will suffer now if he can’t find work at home. He’s lucky he has his passport. Many employers hold the passports and pretend that employee needs to pay a fee to get their passport back from the government. The worker is lucky if he ever is able to get enough money together to pay his employer. Essentially they are slave labor. Kuwaiti is considered one of the worst countries for human trafficking because the government allows this type of crime to exist. There is a lot of corruption in the labor department. Judging by the number of Indians working here, the money and risk must be worth it. Family is most important to the people of these so called Third World countries. TCN’s come here for years, sometimes 6 to 10 years to work and support their families back home. They work 6 or 7 days a week, live in cramped dirty housing, suffer the daily weather, and do it with humble austerity while being treating like a sub-human being.