"Ethiopia is the most popular African country for Saudi families to import housemaids from, but the large number of requests and routine procedures in Ethiopia often delay the recruitment process," Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbool told Arab News on Monday.
Al-Maqbool said the decision of Indonesia to stop sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia was still in effect.
He said Saudis show very little interest in recruiting maids from Kenya, especially in the western provinces, but said there was a small demand for them in the eastern and central parts of the country.
Al-Maqbool played down warnings issued by the Kenyan government to their women citizens not to go work in Saudi Arabia and said the media usually blow up even the smallest of issues. He said compared to other countries, the number of Kenyan housemaids in the Kingdom is very small.
A number of websites on Sunday published clips of a Kenyan documentary film on the working conditions of housemaids in Saudi Arabia. Warnings in Kenya against sending housemaids to the Kingdom increased following the recent murder of a Kenyan housemaid in Jeddah, for which her sponsor was allegedly responsible.
Al-Maqbool said the Labor Ministry’s approval for the establishment of a number of manpower recruitment companies was only made in principle and was still in an experimental stage. "The ministry, the chambers of commerce and recruitment offices are still considering the matter," he explained.
He said the approval in principle for the establishment of three recruitment companies would provide an opportunity for an in-depth study into the idea.
The ministry early this week gave the green light for a number of recruitment offices to merge into three big companies.
Labor Minister Adel Fakeih said five housemaid recruitment offices could merge into a single company with a capital of not less than SR50 million, while manpower importing offices should merge into companies with a capital of SR100 million each. "The market is open for an unlimited number of recruitment companies," he said.
