“The new law will solve a number of problems facing domestic staff and will help regulate the Kingdom’s unorganized domestic job sector,” said Khaled bin Abdul Rahman Al-Fakheri, who is also a member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR).

He added that domestic workers are facing numerous types of difficulties at the hands of their employers.

“Some housemaids are subjected to physical harassment while others face mental torture mainly due to unpaid wages for lengthy periods of time. There are also instances in which domestic workers create problems for their employers such as refusing to work without providing convincing reasons,” he said.

Some households use abusive language when dealing with their domestic servants, he said, adding that this leads to the worsening of relations between employers and their employees, and at times workers leave for better working environments and higher wages.

Al-Fakheri attributed this to an absence of a law governing relations between employers and their domestic workers.

“This unorganized state of affairs has resulted in aggravating the problems of illegal workers in the Kingdom in addition to increasing the crime rate. Moreover, this also deals a severe blow to the Kingdom’s image abroad despite its relentless efforts to protect the rights of all members of society without any exception,” he said.

“The current labor law excludes domestic workers, denying them rights guaranteed to other workers, such as a weekly days off, a cap on working hours and overtime pay,” he added.

According to Al-Fakheri, the current sponsorship system is mainly responsible for the dismal situation of domestic staff.

“Sponsors find excuses in the system to completely control their domestic workers. They even exploit this to an extent of denying them their rights and withholding salaries. In the absence of a specific law, both sponsors and workers do not have any idea about their rights and obligations. Hence, most house workers are not at all bothered about anything other than receiving their salaries at the end of each month,” he said.

Al-Fakheri said higher Saudi authorities are very keen to protect the rights of domestic workers, and drew attention to the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers in 2000 and 2005.

Ten years ago, the Cabinet directed the concerned authorities to deal firmly with employers who violate the rights of their domestic staff. In its decision in 2005, the Council of Ministers entrusted the Ministry of Labor to enact an exclusive law for domestic workers in the Kingdom and then required for this to be submitted to the Cabinet for approval.

“Even after a lapse of five years, the law is yet to be enacted,” he said while urging the concerned authorities to expedite measures to enact the law. “The law must contain provisions to penalize violators from both parties. It should also restrict relations between domestic workers and sponsors to that relating to work. The employer should not have any right to intervene in other matters, especially concerning his or her residence permit (Iqama), passport, exit re-entry visas and the opening of bank accounts,” he said, while calling for the establishment of a government organization to deal with such matters.