They, however, agreed that the recent negative media coverage on maid abuse in the Kingdom has resulted in a sharp drop in the number of Indonesian maids arriving in Saudi Arabia. The media coverage has also resulted in recruitment offices in Indonesia imposing more conditions on their Saudi counterparts.

One labor recruitment office owner in Jeddah, who did not want his name published, said one of the conditions involves the requirement to draw a map of a sponsor’s home and the need to specify the duties that maids will be assigned.

“Another condition is also to provide the maid with a cell phone to ensure she can stay in contact with her family, a condition that many Saudi families will not like,” he added.

The recruitment offices are also in agreement that the price to recruit maids has sharply increased and that manpower offices in Indonesia are responsible for this.

“In the past, recruiting a maid would cost SR6,500 and she would arrive within three months. Things are now more complicated and the initial cost has increased to SR8,500, excluding the cost of the visa,” said another recruitment office owner.

Many recruitment offices are now advising people to transfer the sponsorship of their maids rather than recruiting new ones from abroad.

Abdul Rahman Khayyat, the Saudi ambassador in Jakarta, said the embassy has not received any instructions to stop recruitment from Indonesia, adding that the number of labor visas issued at the embassy has dropped significantly.

Speaking to a local daily, he added that the number of visas issued dropped to 150 from 2,000 in recent days and that Jakarta has not announced any new conditions for the recruitment of maids.

Chairman of the JCCI’s recruitment committee Yahya Maqbool had earlier claimed that the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s ban on Indonesian workers was not official, suggesting that Indonesian workers were simply putting off coming to the Kingdom because of the alleged media negativity in Indonesia.

He also said that there is currently no official ban on workers, but they have told Saudi recruitment agents not to accept new applications for Indonesian workers due to the small number of applications.