JEDDAH, 20 May 2005 — Indonesian housemaids will once again start coming to Saudi Arabia following new bilateral arrangements.
The special committee formed by the Ministry of Labor had meetings with visiting officials from Indonesia in Riyadh and arrangements have been worked out under which maids are to get a better deal, an Indonesian diplomatic source said.
The Kingdom has been the largest market for Indonesian domestic staff, issuing about 15,000 visas monthly for maids. Indonesia suspended manpower exports to the Kingdom on Feb. 2, 2003, to implement sweeping administrative reforms at local recruitment agencies.
In the absence of Indonesian maids, the Kingdom had increased its dependence on Philippine and Sri Lankan maids, and also had plans to get them from Cambodia and Vietnam.
An official letter in connection with the agreement is being forwarded to officials concerned with the recruitment of maids in Indonesia.
Under the new arrangements, Indonesian maids will be paid a monthly salary ranging from SR750 to SR900 and will be entitled to a weekly off or SR25 in lieu thereof. They will also be entitled to leave with pay if they fall sick. In the event of a maid’s death, the sponsor will make burial arrangements locally or transport the body back home.
The sponsors will bear all costs related to their maids including air tickets, accommodation, food and health care. They will also facilitate and bear the expenses of maids who wish to perform Haj or Umrah. Above all, the sponsors will treat their maids according to Shariah. The sponsors will also bear the responsibility if their maids suffer from psychological or physical disorders at the workplace.
More than eight million of the Kingdom’s estimated 23 million population are foreign nationals who work in largely menial or blue-collar positions. About one million work as domestics, such as gardeners and maids. The vast majority of the 400,000 maids are women from Asia.
Maids have also been running away from their sponsors for a variety of reasons, including non-payment of wages and maltreatment by family members. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta and the Indonesian Manpower Ministry have held meetings to remove the obstacles to labor recruitment from the country at a time when 40,000 labor visas had been held up at the embassy.
There were three major impediments to recruiting domestic servants from Indonesia. First, the manpower ministry allowed only 27 of 400 Indonesian recruitment firms to handle Saudi labor applications. Second, the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh wanted a fee of $25 to endorse the work contract of each maid, but the Kingdom had rejected the scheme. And third, the manpower ministry had imposed a quota system on recruitment firms, limiting the number of visas they could arrange each month.
