I do not exaggerate when I say that thousands of newspaper articles, statements and complaints have been published about runaway maids and the problems they cause. Families suffer because of the money spent to recruit maids. And then the maids, after only a short time, run away, often with the connivance of people who encourage them to run away. These people provide the women with work and shelter and with more money than they were receiving from their legal sponsor.
I say that hundreds of articles and interviews have been published regarding runaway maids but still, there is no solution to the problem. Is there any mechanism that guarantees the rights of sponsors to get their money back if their maids run away? Most of the maids who run away have not been exposed to physical harm, and those that have been are small in numbers. Most of those who run away were planning to do so before they even arrived in the Kingdom.
There are maids who escape after months of work because of bad treatment; this is a fact and should be dealt with. They escape because they see no other choice and often run away when they are shopping in a mall. The family takes the blame when these maids run away because the bad treatment the maids received led to them running away. But what about the families who paid more than SR5,000 to recruit a maid, not counting other extra payments that came to thousands of riyals. The family then has to pay thousands more in order to recruit another maid who may remain with the family or run away. Why do the families have to pay for the maid to come here and then run away to work somewhere else?
The main question here is: Where do the maids stay after running away. We do not think the authorities are aware of these places. What are the procedures for deporting these maids? Are there mechanisms that guarantee the rights of families? If these mechanisms do not exist, then when will they be implemented? How long will citizens be victims? Is it really such a big problem to solve this small one?
