Explained: What was Saudi Arabia’s Kafala system and why its abolition is a historic moment for migrant workers

For over half a century, a single word defined the lives of millions of foreign workers in the Gulf: kafala, Arabic for “sponsorship.” It decided whether they could change jobs, whether they could leave the country, and whether they could fight back against abuse. It was a system critics compared to “modern-day slavery.” Now, for the first time in 50 years, that system has officially been abolished in Saudi Arabia , where roughly 13 million foreign workers make up the backbone of the economy. But what exactly was the kafala system? Why was it so controversial? And how much will life really change for those who lived under it? The kafala system was a legal framework that governed the employment and residency of migrant workers across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. It