Governments in the Middle East should act quickly in 2009 to fulfill longstanding promises to protect migrant women’s rights, said Human Rights Watch today, ahead of December 18, 2008, International Migrants’ Day. A number of governments have promised major reforms in the response to widespread and egregious abuse, but have yet to finalize and carry out these plans.

New arrests show that Kuwait has resumed enforcing a repressive dress code that criminalizes “imitating the appearance of the opposite sex,” Human Rights Watch said today. It called on the government to investigate allegations of ill-treatment of people detained and to repeal the offending provision, which violates Kuwait’s human rights obligations.

When labor ministers from 22 Asian and Middle Eastern countries meet in Abu Dhabi this week to discuss Asian contract migrant workers, they should address widespread violations of migrant workers’ rights, Human Rights Watch said today.

Authorities should immediately release more than a dozen persons jailed under Kuwait’s new dress-code law, Human Rights Watch said today. The law, approved by the National Assembly on December 10, 2007, criminalizes people who “imitate the appearance of the opposite sex.”

Governments in Asia and the Middle East must take stronger action to fight rampant abuse against migrant workers, several migrants’ and human rights groups said in a joint letter on the eve of December 18, International Migrants’ Day.

Sri Lankan domestic workers face serious abuses, including violence, harassment and exploitation when they migrate to work in the Middle East, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch said the governments of Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should do more to protect women from labor exploitation and violence when they migrate to the Middle East, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

Iraq’s neighbors are closing off escape routes to Iraqi asylum seekers, just as the international community has begun to respond to the 2 million refugees from the war, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.

After fleeing violence and persecution in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis living in Jordan face a daily threat of arrest, fines and deportation because the Jordanian government treats them as illegal immigrants rather than refugees, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. When US President George W. Bush meets King Abdullah in Amman tomorrow, he must offer to assist Jordan in protecting Iraqi refugees and insist Amman stops sending them back into mortal danger.