Newsbrief: Kuwait domestic Slave Market on Instagram

by Kasumi Matsumoto
Edited by Bri Gilman

Online domestic slave market social media accounts have been uncovered by Kuwait authorities, according to the BBC.

Photo: BBC

The accounts were found by the BBC News Arabic investigation. The account posted Kuwaitis as working slaves, and were available only in Kuwait through major search engines such as Google, Apple and Instagram.

People were posted as “available working slaves” with the hashtags like “maids for transfer” or “maids for sale.” According to the Kuwait authorities, those owners of social media accounts were commanded  to remove their advertisements. As well as to sign a legal commitment promising they would never engage in this market or a similar activity.

According to Instagram, most of these accounts were de-activated after the BBC investigated them. The rest of them were removed by Facebook and Instagram after BBC contacted them.

A police officer involved in this case assumes it could result in an arrests and/or compensation for the victims.

A 16 year old girl named Fatou is one of the victims who were posted on the app. “I believe the app developers should definitely provide compensation for Fatou. As well as possibly Apple and Google.” Kimberley Motley, an American international lawyer who is in responsible for the Fatou’s case, said. “On Apple Store they proclaim that they are responsible for everything that’s put on their store. and so our questions is, what does that responsibility mean?” Motley called for criminal charge against  those involved in trading Fatou.

The social media providers, including Apple and Google, said they are now trying to figure out how to stop illegal activity on their service platforms.