New York University's announcement today that it will require all companies to respect the rights of laborers building its campus in the United Arab Emirates is a significant step toward protecting migrant workers there.

Many governments’ policies toward migrants worldwide expose them to human rights abuses including labor exploitation, inadequate access to health care, and prolonged detention in poor, overcrowded conditions.

Kuwaiti lawmakers should include domestic workers under a major new labor law, Human Rights Watch said today. The draft law would toughen penalties for private companies that abuse their workers, but would not extend its protections to the country’s 600,000 migrant domestic workers. The law is scheduled for a vote in the National Assembly on December 6, 2009.

The Lebanese government should investigate the deaths of eight migrant domestic workers during October, 2009, as well as the reasons for the disproportionately high death rate among this group of workers.

Bahrain's Labor Ministry should hold employers who withhold wages and passports from migrant employees accountable.

Labor Day? Let's be real. The last thing on our minds this weekend is labor rights. Whether we're fortunate enough to have a job or worrying about how to get one in today's economy, we'll focus more on this summer's last hurrah than on the Tuesday- morning-after travails.

Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council passed a bill on July 8, 2009, to improve legal protections for the estimated 1.5 million domestic workers in the country, but the measure still falls short of international standards, Human Rights Watch said today. The bill goes from the Shura Council, an appointed consultative body, to the cabinet, which can make further changes before it is enacted into law.

Thousands of South Asian migrant workers building a US$27 billion island development in the United Arab Emirates face severe exploitation and abuse, in some cases amounting to forced labor.