We will not send women to work as housemaids in Kingdom: Egyptian minister

RIYADH: Cairo will not send Egyptian women to work as housemaids in the Kingdom, a senior Egyptian official visiting the capital said on Saturday.

“We will not send our women as housemaids due to social and cultural concerns,” said Aisha Abdel-Hadi, the Egyptian labor minister, following talks with Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid, deputy minister of labor, on Saturday.

Abdel-Hadi, who is heading a labor delegation, discussed a wide-range of issues relating to the Egyptian labor force in the Kingdom.

Dispelling rumors, Abdel-Hadi said Cairo does not have any plans to deploy Egyptian maids to the Kingdom in the future. Touching on the talks between the two ministers held on Saturday, Abdel-Hadi said the two parties resolved several issues related to Egyptian workers.

“The problems were not related to a specific profession. Various sectors had different forms of problems,” she said.

She also pointed out that the number of labor complaints from her community in the Kingdom is minimal when compared to the large Egyptian population in Saudi Arabia.

“Most of the complaints are due to misunderstandings and miscommunication between employers and employees,” she said.

She added that Egyptians are no strangers to the Kingdom since they speak the same language, follow the same religion and cherish Islamic culture. “This cultural affinity between the peoples of the two countries help each other resolve differences on their own,” she said.

Despite a decrease in the foreign remittances made by overseas Egyptian workers, the minister said that her country has withstood the global financial crisis that struck several countries in the region.

Al-Humaid said the Kingdom and Egypt maintain excellent bilateral relations from time immemorial. “It’s no exaggeration to say that the labor relations between the two countries are healthy, smooth and function without any major problem,” he said, adding that the Kingdom is happy with the Egyptian labor force working in the Kingdom.

There are one million Egyptian workers in the Kingdom, the fourth largest expatriate community in Saudi Arabia. In 2008, the Saudi Embassy in Cairo issued the second largest number of Saudi entry visas.