Kuwaiti blogger slammed for 'racist' post says criticism is 'Islamophobic'

Instagram star expressed frustration that migrant labourers are entitled to any time off

The beauty blogger who sparked outrage after complaining about new laws giving migrant workers better rights has refused to apologise for her remarks, instead accusing her critics of attacking Islam, the hijab and Kuwait.

Sondos al-Qattan has attracted global condemnation since she posted a video to Instagram last week in which she expressed frustration at newly implemented changes to Kuwait’s kafala system, which now mean Filipino migrant workers can keep control of their own passports and have the right to four days off a month.

“How can you have a servant at home who gets to keep their passport with them? If they ran away and went back to their country, who’ll refund me?” Ms Qattan said in the now deleted post.

“I don’t want a Filipino maid anymore.”

Despite widespread criticism pointing out Ms Qattan’s woeful understanding of migrant labour abuse in the Gulf state, and the fact that several leading beauty brands, including Max Factor Arabia, have severed ties, the Kuwaiti social media star has repeatedly defended her remarks.

In a new video posted to her now private Twitter account on Thursday, Ms Qattan called the backlash to her comments a “foreign media campaign” designed to attack Islam, the hijab, Kuwait and the wider Gulf region.

“Of course I did not have to offer any apology, because I was telling the truth.

“Keeping a domestic worker’s passport is deemed an enslavement and racism [by these people]. Why judge me [over keeping] my worker’s passport, with the aim of ensuring my safety?

“These people express more outrage over my remarks than they have over humanitarian crises and massacres in Syria, Iraq and Gaza. Are these humanitarian values?”

Ms Qattan also called on her 2.3 million Instagram followers to boycott the brands that have dropped her sponsorship deals.

Kuwait, like most Middle Eastern countries, operates a kafala sponsorship system for migrants who mostly work in unskilled cleaning and construction jobs.

The extremely poor working conditions have been extensively documented by rights groups, which call it “modern day slavery”.

In Kuwait, Filipino workers were given new rights after a maid was murdered by her employers earlier this year, leading to a diplomatic standoff in which the Philippines demanded better rights for its 200,000 citizens living there.