came from other South or Southeast Asian countries or other parts of the Middle East. Kuwait employs the controversial ‘kafala' migrant worker sponsorship system, which is known to perpetuate many human rights violations. Many of the cases of foreign nationals sentenced to death in Kuwait could be argued to be related to situations arising under kafala. For example, at least ve of the foreign nationals were women, sentenced to death for murder (usually after being abused by a Kuwaiti employer). Three of these women have since been executed, or died in custody. As is the case in other Gulf jurisdictions, some foreign national men, particularly Pakistanis were sentenced to death for drug traf cking, after being forced to transport drugs as part of their migration journey by individuals in the recruitment agencies. Activists have argued that being duped into smuggling drugs across a border against one’s will is a form of human traf cking, making the case that these individuals should be released from death row (Gerry et al., 2016; Migrant Care and Reprieve, 2021). Another case involved an Egyptian national who murdered his sponsor after a dispute over his residency visa, which he needed in order to continue working and which the employer had refused to renew. Furthermore, domestic workers may sometimes be convenient scapegoats for murders committed by others. For example, a Filipina domestic worker was executed in Kuwait in 2017, after being convicted for killing her employer’s daughter, though the forensic evidence did not place her at the scene. Thousands of migrant workers are needed in Kuwait to fuel the rapid expansion of the Gulf nations. Acknowledgements With special thanks to the following organisations and individuals who lent their considerable assistance and expertise towards this research in Kuwait: P39A, Reprieve, Harm Reduction International, Eleos Justice, Lama Karamé, Pramod Acharya, Emma Rice, among others. Death Penalty Research Unit, University of Oxford For more research see: fi fi fi foreign-nationals.uwazi.io or tinyurl.com/mappingdeathrow