The six monarchies of the Persian Gulf are considered to be the world's third largest hub of international migration, having over the decades drawn millions of labour migrants to occupy a range of jobs across all tiers of the labour market. Despite decades of an unabated inward flow of foreign workers, none of the regional governments consider themselves to be destinations for permanent settlement or immigration. To meet their domestic labour needs and simultaneously avoid becoming immigrant‐based societies, the Gulf States have developed elaborate mechanisms of migration control. The overarching goal of the much vilified “kafala” system has above all else been to ensure the temporariness of migrants' duration of stay. By tying migrants' visa status directly to their employer‐sponsors and to short duration work contracts, the Gulf states have managed to cycle workers in and out of the country without making an efforts towards integration or adding to their citizen population. However, the precarities, dependencies and immobilities this visa regime imposes on labour migrants has generated a phenomenon of migrants actively seeking means by which to evade it. This paper explores Pakistani migrants' efforts to gain “legal” entry into the Gulf labour markets through pursuing the “Azad” or “free” visa. These visas are in essence sold (at a fairly high cost) to potential migrants via the profit‐oriented transnational labour recruitment system that brings migrants from Asia to the Gulf.

中文翻译：

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购买自由：波斯湾的移民工人和“Azad”签证1


波斯湾的六个君主国被认为是世界第三大国际移民中心，几十年来吸引了数百万劳工移民在劳动力市场的各个层面从事一系列工作。尽管几十年来外国工人的流入有增无减，但没有一个地区政府认为自己是永久定居或移民的目的地。为了满足国内劳动力需求并同时避免成为以移民为基础的社会，海湾国家制定了复杂的移民控制机制。备受诟病的“卡法拉”制度的首要目标是确保移民停留期限的临时性。通过将移民的签证身份直接与雇主资助者和短期工作合同挂钩，海湾国家成功地让工人循环进出该国，而无需做出努力融入或增加其公民人口。然而，这种签证制度给劳务移民带来的不稳定、依赖性和流动性导致了移民积极寻找逃避签证制度的现象。本文探讨了巴基斯坦移民通过寻求“自由”签证“合法”进入海湾劳动力市场的努力。这些签证本质上是通过以利润为导向的跨国劳动力招聘系统（将移民从亚洲带到海湾）出售（以相当高的成本）给潜在移民的。