MENA’s Migrant Workers and the War on Iran

Analyses of the Iran war most frequently focus on military strategy, global energy markets, evolving/devolving alliances, and innumerable searches for an off-ramp. Detailed coverage has also focused on global food security and manufacturing risks as hydrocarbon-dependent fertilizers and petrochemicals come under stress. However, amidst all this coverage, less heralded has been a huge, vulnerable demographic facing immediate and longer-term costs: migrant workers.

Migrant workers – indispensable at work and back home

The largest numbers of migrant workers in the Middle East are in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) where non-nationals numbering over 34 million account for over half the total population of 62 million. The International Labor Organization (ILO) says that there are over 24 million migrant workers in the GCC, with smaller numbers in Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel. A large majority are men with women forming a majority in domestic services. As Iranian missiles and drones target not only US bases but critical civilian infrastructure and commercial venues, the first casualties have been migrant workers. In the first days of the war these included a Nepali security guard at Zayed International Airport, a Bangladeshi water tanker driver, a Pakistani taxi driver and more since. On October 7, 2023 when the broader war started, 42 Thai migrant workers died in Hamas’ onslaught on Israel and 31 were taken hostage.

The GCC’s high percentage of foreign nationals in proportion to national populations (Table 1) underlines the critical role they play in these societies. The GCC’s top 5 migrant sending countries are India (9.1 million), Bangladesh (5 million), Pakistan (4.9 million), Egypt (3.3 million), and Philippines (2.2 million). There are different variations for each GCC member, but migrants constitute the backbone of all these economies. They sustain essential sectors, including construction, logistics, healthcare, retail, security, app-based workers, agriculture, and domestic service, the latter an especially vulnerable group. 

Countries of origin or sending countries are often highly reliant on these workers’ remittances. For Nepal 2024 remittances amounted to 25.2 percent of GDP. Corresponding figures were 9.4 percent for Pakistan, 7.6 percent for Egypt, and 8.7 percent for the Philippines.  The ILO says total remittances from the GCC stood at $131.5 billion in 2023 .  

Table 1 – Percentage of non-nationals to national population in the GCC

Source: Aljazeera / Global Media Insight

India’s 2025 GCC remittances were $50 billion, Pakistan’s 2024 remittances reached $16 billion with an uptick in 2025. Bangladesh posted $16.5 billion in 2024 and Egypt brought in $18-20 billion with the Philippines at $4 billion. On average each foreign workers supports at least four dependents so nearly 100 million people directly depend on remittances and many others for indirect benefits as the funds circulate.

Estimates are that a short-lived conflict could cut regional GDP by up to 2 percent and remittances by 5 percent while a prolonged crisis damaging energy infrastructure could reduce GDP by up to 15 percent and cut remittances by 30 to 35 percent. Furthermore, there is the worrying rise in hydrocarbon prices and its impact on importers such as India, Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines, and others.

Challenges and risks for migrant workers in conflict

Migrant workers face layered risks in conflict zones. Language, employer permission, and legal challenges may limit access to information, shelters, health care and evacuation processes and routes. Migrant workers are often unwittingly if not willfully  excluded from emergency evacuation protocols and can find barriers in accessing shelter. Conflict worsens economic vulnerability, heightening the risk that employers will use it to withhold wages, deny leave, or dismiss workers without compensation. For workers who are paid by the hour or the delivery, the paralysis of commercial activity means immediate destitution.

As the conflict intensified in the Middle East, a stark divergence in safety emerged. While sponsored flights rushed in to evacuate diplomats, tourists, and white-collar foreign workers, migrant workers wishing to leave faced closed airspaces and airports making rapid evacuations virtually impossible even as airfares shot up. Flights for the millions of migrant workers were difficult to arrange for hard-strapped diplomatic missions and foreign ministries even as their citizens were conflicted about evacuation.

For many leaving their jobs is a heart-wrenching decision, often signaling financial disaster for them and dependent families back home. Many owe hefty amounts to recruitment agencies, migration “consultancies”, etc. and find themselves in a debt trap that could ensnare them for years should they return. Shouldering this debt makes it extremely difficult to leave a job even when personal safety is endangered.  By late March 2026 only 375,000 or around 4 percent of Indians in the GCC had returned home.  

Yet, many migrants are increasingly at home in the GCC. “We already have the third generation of migrants there,” said S Irudaya Rajan, chair of the International Institute of Migration and Development, “Indians have a longer association of networks available to them in the Gulf than Europeans do”. These networks help migrants by targeting information asymmetries in the labor market and assist with educational and government services. This is replicated in degrees across other nationalities helping refugees become successfully integrated – especially for those in white collar jobs. For the vast majority in lower wage employment, however, the situation is bleaker.

The Kafala system and structural traps

The Kafala system, a temporary labor migration regime used in Jordan, Lebanon, and the GCC establishes a legal relationship between the worker, their sponsor, and the state, empowering employers. Reforms have been ongoing in all GCC countries, but the system endures. The ILO says effective reforms are not simply a matter of changing legislation, “it is deeply embedded in other measures, practices, and customs as just a way of doing things…at the ILO we don’t talk about the abolition of kafala but the need to dismantle it, recognizing that it will take a range of measures to do away with”. Real vulnerabilities are also in the informal recruitment systems and weak oversight in origin countries.  

Among the most vulnerable are the 83 percent of the 6.6 million domestic workers employed in the Arab States who are migrant workers and constitute the backbone of the care-economy. Especially in the GCC, many migrant domestic workers are isolated inside private homes with limited access to information, communications, or evacuation channels. Many have their passports and documentation held by employers with limited contact with their families back home. Language barriers exacerbate their peril, as emergency warnings and safety instructions are rarely broadcast in workers’ native languages.

What next?

What needs to be done in this context appears obvious but is in reality a complex and multi-layered process. An international clamor for de-escalation and peace in the Gulf has risen from the UN, the EU, and, among others, an emerging regional coalition of Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. China alone has talked to 26 different parties. Yet it has been a convoluted process to even reach the current tenuous ceasefire interpreted differently by both sides.

When it comes to the war and challenges facing migrant workers, organizations ranging from the ILO to the International Organization for Migration, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and many others have issued calls on the situation. Among these the Coalition on Labor Justice for Migrants in the Gulf has issued a declaration signed by twelve different labor and migrant advocacy groups, demanding immediate efforts by governments of destination and countries of origin, employers and supply chains, and international institutions to safeguard migrant workers’ rights in conflict countries.

These includeEqual Access to Emergency Protection from access to shelters to early warning systems, with calls made to governments and diplomatic missions to help overcome language barriers. Safe Passage and Repatriation is a demand for immediate, safe and free repatriation and ensuring all workers’ documents are freely available with payment of due wages and compensations. Also critical is a call for Freedom of Association allowing workers to contact their organizations where they work or in home countries with access to information allowing informed decision making. Specific measures also called for theProtection for Migrant Domestic Workersincluding destination and home governments facilitating access to information, available resources, and repatriation measures, including protection from discrimination and sexual abuse.

These are basic demands – including the dismantling of the Kafala system – which are increasingly reflected in ongoing labor reforms. Yet, the system endures and more is needed. What is clear is that it is only with the cessation of hostilities that one can start to work on sustained improvements. Also, with changing demographics in both origin and destination countries and the destabilizing and immediate impact of a worsening crisis due to the war, significant changes may be in the offing for the GCC’s migration model.  Furthermore, competition for migrants, especially but not solely skilled ones, will also push for an expansion of rights, including for residency and mobility. In the meantime the anxious and often terrifying wait of migrant workers and civilians continues.  Should the war escalate, the situation could devolve into an utter humanitarian catastrophe as power, water systems fail and social cohesion fractures. This would quickly result in chaos across the Gulf with millions seeking a way out and awaiting humanitarian assistance. Now is the time to put in place measures to prepare.