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In 2014, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia signed a Bilateral Labour Agreement (BLA) to govern the sending of Vietnamese women to do domestic work under the kafala visa sponsorship system common in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
Problems with the BLA’s implementation have been well documented not only in Vietnam but in other sending countries as well. The kafala system ties Vietnamese female domestic workers to their Saudi sponsors for their residency and work permits, allowing abuses and violations of labour rights to continue with impunity and no oversight. Studies of BLAs signed between other sending countries (such as India and Egypt) and the Gulf states also found that these agreements similarly failed to respond to violations and abuses to their respective workers.
The Vietnam–Saudi Arabia BLA came during period of relative openness Vietnamese civil society’s labour advocacy activities that had begun in the early 2000s. Labour newspapers and global NGOs stepped in to advocate for workers and were successful in putting oversight of Vietnam’s labour exports on the agenda of the US State Department.
Between 2015 and 2021, Vietnamese labour newspapers exposed exploitation and abuses endured by female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, as well as demands lodged by their families in Vietnam, requesting the Vietnamese government and recruitment companies to bring home their loved ones.
On the heels of a 2021 UN special report on human trafficking in Vietnam, Vietnam was downgraded to the lowest Tier 3 ranking in the 2022 State Department’s Trafficking-in Persons (TIP) 2022 Report which prompted short-term government actions to appease the US and global outcry. Two Vietnamese labour attachés in the Vietnamese Embassy in Riyadh who reportedly exploited the Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia were investigated and removed.
But starting in 2022, some structural changes started to halt even this limited progress. First, the government silenced Vietnamese labour newspapers, banning reports on female workers’ suffering in Saudi Arabia and their families’ advocacy. These strategies were successful: Vietnam was reinstated to the Tier 2 “watch list” in the State Department’s 2023 TIP Report, and was fully reinstated to Tier 2 in 2024 and 2025. Worse yet, the 2025 report said that the two previously removed Vietnamese labour attachés were reinstated due to “lack of evidence.”
Where does this leave those advocating on behalf of workers and their rights in Vietnam? Amid the consolidation of authoritarianism, recent institutional changes to the oversight of labour affairs, the demise of labour media and the weakening of civil society, and unimplemented kafala reforms in Saudi Arabia, workers and their families have been left on their own to deal with the abusive BLA and kafala system. As our research has found, civil society is adapting to Vietnamese government’s concentration of power by way of individual atomised online mobilisation in social networks for mutual aid.
Structural changes, empty reforms
The political contexts for this shift have been the shrinking space for labour advocacy in Vietnam amid an assertion of the party-state’s control over civil society and Saudi Arabia’s “policy reforms” that have appeared on paper but not in practice.
The Vietnamese government’s concentration of power started in 2025 and intensified in 2026 with bureaucratic reorganisations and quelling of civil society oversight. In 2025, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) was dissolved and the Department of Overseas Labour (DOLAB) that once lay within it had its functions transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In this new reorganisation, there is no transparency and no accountability around the government’s regulations of labour rights, which were more transparent before under MOLISA. On the Ministry of Home Affairs website, there is no listing of officials in charge of the Overseas Labour Management office, which is now part of a new structure that includes 22 administrative departments and public service entities. Complaints will get lost in this huge administrative structure.
MOLISA’s 24-hour domestic worker/trafficking hotline was meanwhile moved to the Ministry of Health. These bureaucratic reforms were matched by the government’s elimination of the Vietnamese labour press as part of a broader assertion of political control over state-sanctioned media, leaving no official outlets for workers and their families engage in oversight and raise grievances.
So while the BLA still exists, there are no oversight to hold the two governments accountable. Without the token oversight of DOLAB, Vietnamese recruitment companies went rogue and faced no oversight from either government. The Vietnamese state-sanctioned website of state-licensed recruitment companies continues to post Saudi labour-export content into 2025, revealing that out of 20,000 Vietnamese workers working there, over 7,000 work as domestic workers, second only to oil processing workers. But there was no acknowledgment that almost 100% of domestic workers are women—and no protection mechanisms for them are described anywhere on their websites.
One of those infamous Vietnamese recruitment companies is VINACO (also known as VINACOHR), which has operated with the government’s sanction since 2003. Since 2019, VINACO gross negligence towards workers’ wellbeing has cost some workers their lives. One notorious case was their recruited an underage (16-year old) Jarai ethnic-minority woman, H Xuân Siu, from DakLak in Vietnam’s central highlands, and increased her age to a legal age on paper so she can work as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia. After two years working there, and enduring physical abuse, she pleaded with VINACO to send her home but got no help from them. She ended up dying of heart failure at 18. Her urgent call for help was exposed on Facebook by her family members. But VINACO delayed their action, resulting in her burial to take place in Saudi Arabia in 2021, denying proper rituals to her family.
On the Saudi side, the facts show that their publicly announced “labour reform efforts” are to appease global public outcry, without actually being implemented. Independent monitors have continued to question the enforcement of the October 2024 labour reforms with human rights organisations noting that they do not apply to foreign domestic workers, who continue to be subsumed under the kafala system. Even “reforms” to the kafala sponsorship system announced as part of the package still excluded domestic workers from the Saudi Labour Law protections.
In short, the kafala system “remains alive and well, directly enabling forced labour”, with a November 2025 ILO report exposing union allegations of ongoing wage theft, deceptive recruitment, and restricted mobility for domestic workers. At the time of writing, we still found evidence that domestic workers in Saudi Arabia lamented about their passports being confiscated by the kafeel.
In 2026, the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD) introduced the Musaned e-platform that provided access to a new e-contract and e-salary system, and the HRSD’s complaint and dispute-resolution channels.
But many gaping loopholes in this e-platform make it unenforceable. First, this e-platform is only available in English and Arabic languages, skills that most domestic workers do not have. For ethnic minority workers who do not have basic education or could not read Vietnamese, they would be unable to navigate the digital systems to lodge their complaints. Many ethnic minority workers signed the labour contracts with their thumb print on each page, without understanding their rights and the responsibilities of the kafeel and the recruitment companies.
This also assumes that workers can use their phones to call the HRSD hotline. In reality, many kafeel still confiscate workers’ phones upon arrival. Even when some workers manage to lodge their complaints, there is no guarantee that their names will be held in confidence. This violation of confidentiality would prevent workers from lodging their complaints, fearing retaliation from their kafeel.
Moreover, there is no enforcement mechanism on the Musaned platform to ensure that workers get leave to which they are entitled, suitable accommodation, insurance and transport to their home country. Findings from our social media research confirmed that workers did not receive these accommodations, given the loopholes explained above.
The emergence of online mutual aid
Given the effective end of state labour oversight in authoritarian Vietnam, the demise of the labour press, the weakening of civil society and the on-paper-only kafala reforms in Saudi Arabia, how are individual workers and their families adapting to these changes to seek help and empower themselves?
Building from a broader 2023 research project critically asserting that the Vietnam–Saudi bilateral labour agreement has failed to provide social welfare and protection for Vietnamese women domestic workers, this case study provides an original research on how workers and their families respond to the BLA and the Saudi kafala system by using online social media, in light of suppression of civil society and the demise of the labour newspapers in Vietnam.
In particular, this case study has shed light on workers and their families are taking to social media to advocate for their rights. Analysing 161 Facebook postings from March to August 2026, we found how atomised acts of advocacy, by way of online mobilisation for mutual aid, have become more important, now that the labour press and local and global NGOs can no longer act as a “force multiplier” on behalf of workers.
Without the pro-labour newspapers, government protection and active NGOs to amplify their grievances, social media offers some help to workers and families grieving those lost to abuses—although they are not as strong a collective force as before—to seek timely outcomes. We use the concept of mutual aid online concept to examine how social media communities have stepped in to address problems of the structural violence of the BLA and to provide a range of social support to community members.
When analysing the 161 Facebook postings, we organised them into themes which shed light on how social media has been used by domestic workers and their family members to ask for guidance, support, and to alert each other about the exploitation, risks and dangers when working in Saudi Arabia. In particular, the labour exploitation theme exposes the daily work intensity, working in multiple kafeel households not registered on the contracts, lack of food and water intake, and no personal time. The dehumanising treatment theme sheds light on the deprivation of food and denial of rest even during illnesses. The lingering trauma theme sheds light on the pains that stayed with them even after they returned to Vietnam. The advice of not to work in Saudi Arabia theme talks about the availability of care work in Vietnam with better working and living conditions and higher wages. Finally, the confiscation theme exposes the continuing problem of passports, phones, and personal belongings being confiscated upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, a practice that directly violates the announced “labour reforms” in Saudi Arabia.
Online mutual justice for a deceased wife
In August 2026, we conducted two interviews with Hầu Văn Hành, whose wife, Hoàng Thị Mỵ, passed away in 2021 while working in Saudi Arabia, as well as analysing his Facebook postings and primary documents (including her labour contract and his petitions lodged with government agencies).
We found that the online mutual aid has provided moral and legal support to him and his family, albeit nowhere near the adequate resolution to address the injustice that they have been facing. When both governments and the recruitment company VINACO turned him down, the husband has been receiving moral and legal support, demonstrated in over 50 comments spread out in 4 Facebook groups (from July 21 to August 7, 2026). In his Facebook postings, he described himself as “a lowly farmer with a small, powerless voice” but he asked his online supporters to post his pleas on their own social networks to “demand justice for the dead.” His savvy online mutual aid strategy has helped him to reach way beyond the 50 comments, to global audiences including us, scholars, who decided to conduct this study.
This five-year fight for his deceased wife’s dignity and justice, via social media postings, illustrates how civil society is adapting to the turn to authoritarianism in Vietnam when the workers and their families are left to fend for themselves. The online support ranged from gender-focused groups: the Sisters Group in his Thái Nguyên hometown and The Kingdom of Women Working in Saudi Arabia. But he also reached out to and obtained legal advice and support from appealing to Facebook groups discussing issues related to government policies such as the Group on National Assembly News (with critical postings) and the Group on General News (with broad coverage of issues) . A lawyer has volunteered to work on a pro-bono basis to assist him with all the legal needs to interface with both local and national government agencies.
This case study also demonstrates how the BLA failed to enforce the contract stipulations that workers signed with the recruitment companies. Hoàng Thị Mỵ, from the H’mông ethnic minority, signed the contract with VINACO in 2019 and died in a car accident while accompanying her Saudi kafeel‘s family to Jordan in 2021. That she continued caring for their children during this trip was a clear violation of the VINACO contract, which required her to work only in the residence of the kafeel’s household.
Her body was never repatriated to Vietnam, and her family received no compensation. While her contract with the kafeel was never found—and thus their exact legal obligations cannot be established—her contract with VINACO clearly shows the kafeel’s obligation to provide health and accident insurance and to compensate her surviving family according to Saudi law in the event of death.
Interviews with the grieving husband revealed exploitative working conditions. Hoàng Thị Mỵ worked non-stop for 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, permitted to rest only between 11pm and 6 am in her single room, while still waking up multiple times a night to tend the kafeel‘s four children. When she needed to take a short break, the kafeel and his wife slapped her on the face to warn her of the need to return to work. This was all a clear violation of the VINACO contract, which requires that the kafeel household ensure the worker has “at least 9 hours per day” of rest in the 24-hour cycle.
Other violations demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the Saudi’s “labour reforms”, specifically when it comes to implementing elements of the Musaned e-contract. Upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, all of Hoàng Thị Mỵ’s personal belongings, including her passport, phone, papers, and clothing were confiscated. She was permitted to use her phone to call home only once per month, each call capped at 30 minutes to an hour. The kafeel had total control over her hard-earned monthly salary. Over 20 months of working there, her husband had to beg the kafeel to send her wages to raise their three children. This violated her VINACO contract, which said that the company had to coordinate with the kafeel to ensure that the worker can send money home based on the law.
Ultimately, there is a limit to how civil society, by way of atomised mobilisation, can cope with systemic exploitation of the BLA. Recently, the critical Facebook Group on National Assembly News was paused indefinitely since September 28, 2026, manifesting a heightened government censorship of online mutual aid. For Mr. Hầu Văn Hành, unable to hold the kafeel accountable and without access to his wife’s contract with the kafeel, he turned to VINACO for compensation and the return of her body, to which he is entitled under her contract with the company. Still, VINACO repeatedly dragged their feet in processing his case, demanding new paperwork that prolonged the process, and he now faces the real possibility that his case will be permanently closed once the five-year statute of limitations passes in 2026 (with her passing in 2021).
Paths forward
While online mutual aid and mobilising offers some assistance to the workers and grieving families, it is woefully inadequate to address the systemic abusive kafala system, given the absence of the Vietnamese government’s enforcement of regulations, the suppression of civil society, and the demise of the labour newspapers. We need global awareness of the structural violence of the Vietnam–Saudi BLA that continues to harm vulnerable female workers with impunity. (Neither Vietnam nor Saudi Arabia have ratified the ILO’s 2011 Convention No. 189 on domestic workers.)
Fortunately, global human rights organisations and unions have stepped up the efforts to expose and denounce ongoing violations of the kafala system. On 29 April 2026, UN independent experts on slavery, migration, and trafficking publicly urged Saudi Arabia to abolish the kafala system entirely ahead of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, citing unaccountable worker deaths, wage theft, and confiscation of identity documents. Consistent with our arguments, they recognised barriers facing the workers who might want to report abuses: fear of retaliation, lack of legal support and complex administrative systems. The two death cases (H Xuân Xiu and Hoàng Thị Mỵ) resonate with this UN finding that families of deceased workers encounter challenges in seeking information, accountability and compensation from abroad. Human Rights Watch in May 2026 echoed those concerns, calling the kafala system a “racialized labour governance framework.”
The Vietnamese government can learn from the actions of the Philippine and African governments to better protect Vietnamese female domestic workers. Governments of the Philippines and African countries have been forceful in denouncing the kafala system. On 4 June 2025, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)-Africa led trade unions across 36 countries to file an ILO Article 26 complaint against Saudi Arabia, seeking a Commission of Inquiry into a continuation of abuses and systemic violations of African domestic workers with impunity.
This ITUC-Africa complaint was received in November 2025, but Saudi Arabia sought to close it prematurely at the March 2026 session, prompting a joint pushback from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which warned that closing the case would “disregard substantial evidence of ongoing harm.” Powerful testimonies of exploitation and sexual abuse of Filipino domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are published in an Amnesty International report from July 2026). In June 2026, the ILO, the Philippines, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Executive Bureau launched a Cross-Regional Dialogue Platform on Social Protection for Migrant Workers along the Asia–Gulf corridor. This platform sits under the ILO’s broader STREAM program, which names domestic work as a sector of concern for women migrant workers.
Vietnam can and should join the Asia–Gulf Corridor initiative to protect Vietnamese female domestic workers. They would have the support of global human rights organisations and unions in calling for genuine enforcement of Saudi Arabia’s promised labour reforms, especially for domestic workers.
Finally, 12 years on, Vietnamese workers like Hoàng Thị Mỵ continue to sign two separate contracts: one with the Vietnamese recruitment agency (which most workers possess but are not protected by it) and the other one with the Saudi employer/kafeel and his recruitment agency (which most workers do not possess in order to demand enforcement).
The VINACO contracts repeatedly fail to protect Vietnamese citizens’ labour rights. And the missing worker–kafeel contract, governed by the Saudi domestic worker bylaws, is completely without any public oversight for proper implementation. This latter contract is crucial because it delineates the working and rest conditions, meals and living conditions, communications with family members in Vietnam, healthcare and medical and insurance coverage, and the kafeel’s address where the workers were assigned to work (because workers are legally obligated to work at one household only), and prohibits physical, mental, sexual or other mistreatments.
The long-overdue Standard Employment Contract (SEC), to be signed by four parties (the Vietnamese worker, their Vietnamese recruitment agency, their Saudi employer/kafeel and the Saudi recruitment agency), is needed to hold all four parties accountable to their responsibilities. There is a clear and easy policy step towards beginning to address the chronic abuses we describe here: Vietnam should join the Philippines and Cambodia, whose governments have created and used the Standard Employment Contract to protect their domestic workers in the same years (2013 and 2016 respectively) that each country signed their own BLAs with Saudi Arabia.
