Gulf States Pledge Action on Human Trafficking... Really?

Big words from Gulf States and even Mr. Qaradawi:

A conference in Qatar on human trafficking has urged Arab states to step up the fight against the scourge, seen as widespread in the pro-Western oil-rich Gulf region...

Five of the six GCC member states -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- are on a blacklist of countries trafficking in people. GCC countries, which also include the United Arab Emirates, are close allies of the United States.

International human rights groups have also highlighted the problem of human trafficking in the Gulf area, which hosts more than 13 million expatriates, many of them unskilled and low-paid Asian workers vulnerable to abuse.

Three other Arab countries -- Algeria, Sudan and Syria -- are on the list of worst offenders.

Qatar-based Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi told the conference human trafficking was banned under Islam. He slammed companies that bring in "migrant workers, give them a bare minimum of wages and pen them up like sheep" in crammed rooms as living quarters.

It's hard to see these wonderful declarations actually getting put into practice. Societies like Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE are based on population majority of migrant workers, many of them low-paid (if at all) domestic help. Oil revenues may be up, but not enough to stop the temptation of abusing legions of employees who have no legal recourse or civil rights...