JEDDAH, 11 April 2003 — The question of runaway housemaids continues to cause headaches to some of the diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia.
In Jeddah alone, the consulates of Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia are busy sorting out 40 cases each of runaway maids. The number of cases in Riyadh is reported to be at least three times as high.
“We have 40 cases of runaway maids at present. They are being provided with shelter, food and medical care,” Sri Lankan Consul General A.C.M. Ibrahim told Arab News. “Nonetheless, it’s a challenging task.”
Philippine Consul General Kadatuan P. Usop reported a similar number of cases being tackled by the consulate.
A spokesman for the Indonesian consulate said there had been a steady stream of cases of runaway maids, but they were being addressed to the satisfaction of both the sponsors and the maids.
The Sri Lankan mission has launched a project to offer medical treatment to stranded maids. This followed a strong recommendation from Labor and Employment Minister Maninda Samarasinghe during his visit to the city three months ago. Nishamanie Edirisinghe, a Sri Lankan doctor, volunteered to look after the health problems of these maids.
Housemaids have different reasons for running away from their sponsors.
“My contract has not been honored by my sponsor. They have not paid me my salary since I joined them six months ago. All I was subjected to was long hours of work and sexual harassment,” said a young Sri Lankan maid while she was being taken to a deportation center.
Some of them complained their sponsors regularly beat them, often inflicting injuries.
Heads of diplomatic missions say they make serious efforts to reinstate the runaway maids in their jobs by talking to their sponsors. “But if a maid is not willing to go back then we have no option but to arrange for her deportation. Moreover, deportation is time-consuming as they have to be cleared of their financial obligations. Until then we do take care of such maids with the help of our own funds,” Ibrahim said.
Sponsors, on the other hand, maintain that maids who join them are unprepared for the kind of work they have to do. “They have no knowledge of Arabic and of our lifestyle,” Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, a local businessman, said.
Saudi employers have asked for an investigation of the increasing problem of vanishing maids. They also want local labor recruitment agencies questioned as to the extent of their involvement in this.
They say maids often disappear on completion of their three-month probation period. “Once the probation period is over, labor recruitment agencies are not legally or financially responsible for the disappearance of the maids,” a diplomatic source said.
The modus operandi, according to some sponsors, is that recruitment agencies prevail on the unhappy maids to somehow continue in the job for three months and then disappear if they still wish to do so. Agencies go to the extent of convincing sponsors to dismiss their maids so that they can be relocated elsewhere. “But this generally does not happen because the original sponsor does not easily part with the maid’s iqama,” a recruitment agency source said.
According to Sulaiman Abyani, a sponsor, the disappearance of maids has become a common phenomenon. “The Office for the Protection of Maids alone offers shelter to more than 70 runaway maids every day,” says Abyani. “There is an organized operation behind this to embezzle money from the sponsors. The problem is not of the disappearing maids alone; it is compounded by the recruitment agencies who supply them and operate without proper supervision.”
Saad Sultan, another employer, also put the blame squarely on the recruitment agencies. “Two years ago, I had a maid who worked for three days. Then she told me she didn’t like working with me. I took her to the recruitment agency and dismissed her to avoid getting into trouble. I found to my surprise two years later that she was working with another family.”
Muhammad Al-Sulaiman says as a sponsor he has found that recruitment agencies adopt ingenious tactics. “Agencies place advertisements in local newspapers on behalf of dismissed maids. Employers should be wary of such advertisements and not respond to them. Agencies also delay the arrival of contracted maids so employers are forced to accept any maid who is readily available even if she is not sufficiently qualified.”
