Summary     AFP    Daily Star, Lebanon

Kuwait’s first-ever legislation on the rights of domestic helpers is a “major step” that other Gulf states should follow, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The new law grants domestic workers the right to a weekly day off, 30 days of annual paid leave, a 12-hour working day with rest, and an end-of-service benefit of one month a year at the end of the contract, among other rights, HRW said.

Mainly Asian domestic helpers form around a third of Kuwait’s two million foreign workers, and rights groups have criticized their exclusion from the labor law.

Members of the Kuwaiti national assembly wear their national flag around their shoulders in a show of solidarity and condemnation of the suicide attack at the Shiite Al-Imam Al-Sadeq mosque, during a parliament session at Kuwait’s national assembly in Kuwait City on June 30, 2015. AFP PHOTO / YASSER AL-ZAYYAT