Saad Al-Baddah, president of the National Recruitment Committee at Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the negotiations were on to break the deadlock over the recruitment of Indonesian domestic staff following its suspension by the Saudi authorities in protest against Jakarta’s tougher positions.

“The Saudi recruitment authorities are keen on working out a new agreement that binds both sides equally. The current stalemate is attributed to Jakarta’s failure to meet most of the Saudi requirements in line with earlier bilateral agreements and contracts,” he said.

The ongoing negotiations got a kick-start following the initiative taken by the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh. An official source at the embassy recently indicated Jakarta’s readiness to negotiate the conditions for sending domestic help to the Kingdom, which hosts over one million Indonesian housemaids.

The Saudi National Recruitment Committee quickly responded to this gesture. As a result, from last Sunday onward, negotiations have been held with a delegation of the Indonesian Federation of Workers at the chamber’s headquarters to sort out the hurdles in the way of resuming the recruitment process.

In another development, several Saudi families have started to approach foreign manpower recruitment offices in the Kingdom with their request to hire domestic staff from some other Asian and African countries, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Kenya. Recruitment costs for staff from these countries are much lower compared to that of Indonesia and the Philippines. At present, a Saudi family needs to spend about SR12,000 to hire a domestic servant from Indonesia. 

It is expected that the manpower recruitment offices will start hiring housemaids from Bangladesh from next month. A bilateral agreement to hire domestic helpers at a monthly salary of SR600 has already been signed between the two sides.

The recruitment offices have urged the National Recruitment Committee to advise Saudi families not to approach the authorities to secure visas for domestic staff from Indonesia until the two sides have reached a new agreement. The manpower recruitment offices have urged the authorities to protect their interests and impose tighter regulations on the recruitment of Indonesian workers. They are outraged at the new terms and conditions demanded by the Indonesian authorities. One of them is that a Saudi citizen, who wants to hire a housemaid, must have a minimum monthly salary of SR6,000. The salary of someone who wants to recruit an Indonesian couple to work as house driver and servant must not be less than SR12,000. Jakarta also demands a minimum wage of SR1,000 for house drivers and SR800 for housemaids.

In retaliation to these conditions, the Saudi recruitment offices demanded the Saudi embassy in Jakarta to draft a new bilateral agreement with new conditions for hiring domestic staff. The new agreement would consist of certain conditions aimed at safeguarding the rights of Saudi recruitment offices against exploitation. It should include a provision compelling Indonesian manpower recruitment agents to bear the responsibility for offenses committed by maids they have recruited. They also said the Indonesian authorities should compel their recruitment offices to furnish a bank guarantee amounting to SR100,000 in order to avoid violation of contract conditions by domestic workers.