RIYADH, 18 June 2005 — Saudi Arabia rejected Sri Lanka’s requirement of enhanced wage for the island’s domestic workers in the Kingdom, saying the decision was taken unilaterally by officials in Colombo.
According to an announcement made Thursday by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh, the minimum wage set for domestic aides, effective from July 1, shall be $150 per month as against the current $100.
The chairman of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), Professor P.V.B. Karunatilaka, has instructed Sri Lankan missions in the Middle East, including the Kingdom, to observe the ruling. According to the instruction, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh and its Consulate General in Jeddah will not attest any documents or job orders that do not conform.
“The increase is a unilateral action that cannot be accepted by the Kingdom,” said Waleed Al-Swaidan, the chairman of the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee (SANARCOM). He added that the Sri Lankan officials should take such a decision only after consulting their counterparts in the Kingdom.
Al-Swaidan pointed out that Sri Lanka should first improve the quality of its domestic workers supplied to the Kingdom before it embarks on a salary rise. “Sri Lankan maids who come to the Kingdom fall short of several requirements when compared with women workers from other countries,” he said, noting that Sri Lankan maids could not speak English and would not undergo job orientation before their departure.
Saudi Arabia is home to some 350,000 Sri Lankans, of whom 250,000 are maids.
If Sri Lanka insists on the new salary scale, the chairman said, the Kingdom would be “reluctantly compelled” to turn to countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines for recruitment of maids. “No country is indispensable in this trade. The market is wide open,” he added.
The new salary structure is being implemented on a proposal made by the country’s Labor Minister Athauda Senevirathne who said most Sri Lankan workers in the Middle East have been receiving a monthly pay of $100 for over 18 years. The minister stated that he would not hesitate to take steps to stop workers leaving the country without agreement on the stipulated salary.
P. Wijesundera, charge d’affaires at the Sri Lankan Embassy, said that although the new rule is to be effective from next month, a number of individual sponsors have already signed the job agreements with recruitment agents in Sri Lanka accepting the increased wage.
“The embassy has formally attestedd these agreements,” he said.
Wijesundera said the mission will ensure that the sponsors are financially capable of paying the monthly salaries of their maids.
The Lankan mission here receives some 40 runaway maids daily, of whom 50 percent are handed over by the government-run Women’s Welfare Center for repatriation. The common problems that trigger the maids’ escape from their employers’ homes include non-payment of wages, lack of communication and harassment.
A recent report on the plight of maids released in Colombo stated the number of broken homes and the trauma faced by children cost the country much more than the remittances received by mothers going overseas for employment as domestics.
