JEDDAH, 22 November 2004 — Saudi Arabia has strict rules that prohibit the recruitment of illegal housemaids. Yet, many of them reaped a rich harvest during the Ramadan and Eid festivities.

Inquiries show that the much-known, black-market recruitment of maids was in full swing due to heavy demand for them in the households across the Kingdom. The salaries of maids increased by a staggering 300 percent during the period.

Indonesia’s legal maids increased their monthly salary to SR2,000 while illegals hiked theirs to SR3,000.

Their Sri Lankan counterparts commanded pay-hikes ranging up to SR1,800 and SR2,400 respectively, according to recruitment agency sources.

“In fact, a big demand for housemaids during the festive Ramadan season resulted in work for everyone, whether legal or illegal, and a steep rise in their salaries,” an Indonesian recruitment agent said.

“I was looking for an extra maid, as I was expecting a number of guests during the festive season. I did engage one after paying two and a half times what I pay my regular maid,” said Souad Muhammad Omar, a housewife in Mushreffa district.

“The shortage in maids was primarily caused by the delayed issuance of visas to 10,000 Indonesian maids to work in the Kingdom,” Saad Al-Baddah, deputy chairman of the recruitment committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Al-Watan.

The Kingdom has already sent signals to Indonesia that if Jakarta failed to remove obstacles to labor recruitment then it would have to consider alternative sources, such as Vietnam or Cambodia. “We’re talking to the Indonesian Manpower Ministry to remove the obstacles to labor recruitment from the country,” Saudi Ambassador to Indonesia, Abdullah Aalam, is quoted as saying. There are three major impediments to recruiting domestic servants from Indonesia.

• The Indonesian Manpower Ministry allows only 27 of 400 Indonesian recruitment firms to handle Saudi labor applications.

• The Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh wants a fee of $25 to endorse the work contract of each maid that the Kingdom has rejected.

• The Manpower Ministry has imposed a quota system on recruitment firms, limiting the number of visas they can arrange each month.

Baddah has pointed out that the quota system imposed on recruitment firms has increased the cost of importing domestic servants from Indonesia between $50 and $100 per maid, as the mandatory training period for the women was increased from 12 days to a month. He considers the rise in charges as acceptable.

Saudi recruitment agent Hassan Abdul Kalam of Globe Manpower Agency said the increase in the labor import charge would affect relations between the two countries.

“The decision has not been welcomed in the Kingdom, which has been possibly the largest importer of female manpower from this part of the world,” he added. The Kingdom remains the largest market for Indonesian maids.

“Indonesia, which had been issuing about 15,000 visas for maids every month, suspended manpower exports to the Kingdom some time back to implement sweeping administrative reforms at local recruitment agencies and to check malpractice,” a labor official at the Indonesian Consulate General said.

Indonesian maids are submitting about 15 complaints daily, mostly alleging harassment by their employers or sponsors. While the embassy in Riyadh is receiving 10 complaints a day, the consulate in Jeddah is handling five to seven complaints a day.

“Some 90 percent of the complaints are related to sexual harassment,” he said, adding that the cases of sexual abuse have been decreasing lately. Other complaints relate to nonpayment of salaries, verbal abuse by the wives of their employers and extra work without compensation.

The Indonesian diplomatic mission claims that though a strong initiative has been taken to train female workers, the government is working toward improving the recruitment of maids in order to minimize exploitation.

More than 250,000 maids are currently working in Saudi Arabia. A majority of them come from Indonesia and the rest from countries such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka. All of these countries continue to face the problem of runaway maids who are sheltered by their respective diplomatic missions until they arrive at a settlement with their sponsors or employers, or are deported back home.