Yousuf Al-Muhaimeed
Al-Jazirah
A FEW years ago the recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia was suspended. Many reasons were given for this step, including the violations committed by the labor recruitment offices in Jakarta.
Among others, these illegal acts included forgery, embezzlement and fraud. The requests for importing housemaids, meanwhile, have stockpiled in these offices with no solution in sight.
There were many other issues that led to the stoppage of recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia, including the issue of the Indonesian maid who was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of murder.
The Indonesian media and the country’s parliament blew up the case, which amounted to nothing more than capital punishment passed onto a woman who was convicted of committing murder.
A large number of cases were reported about Indonesian housemaids escaping from their original Saudi sponsors to work for other employers for more money.
These and many other issues concerning the Indonesian housemaids led the authorities in the Kingdom to stop the recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia.
Following this step, we began to hear and read statements from the Labor Ministry and the National Recruitment Committee (NRC) about a unified work contract for all housemaids to ensure their rights and those of their sponsors.
There were also announcements about the recruitment of housemaids from Kenya, Ethiopia, Vietnam, India and other countries. This did not happen. Instead a black market for housemaids was born.
The brokers’ business has flourished. Trading in housemaids behind the scenes has become a lucrative business. A broker might be paid as much as SR35,000 for securing the services of a housemaid.
Many times the chairman of the NRC would come out to announce that an agreement was reached with the Indonesian side to resume the recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia. He would then talk about similar agreements with India, Vietnam and other countries.
If some of us started counting these free-of-charge statements, he would find them in the hundreds since the start of the crisis involving Indonesian housemaids.
Despite these numerous statements about an imminent solution to the problem with Indonesia or the importing of housemaids from other countries, the situation has remained stagnant.
Worse than that, the employment of housemaids has entered the black market and become a profitable trade for the brokers and intermediaries.
Let us ask a simple question to reach the roots of the problem. Who is benefiting from what is happening in the black market? Are they the recruitment offices?
The answer, according to these offices themselves, is no. On the contrary, the offices say their business has dropped and is now only limited to importing drivers from India.
Since the outbreak of the crisis, recruitment even from other countries not on the blacklist has become extremely difficult. It will stretch into long months or years, while in neighboring countries the recruitment of a house help will hardly take a month.
Some people believed that the housemaids crisis was created on purpose to set the stage for the establishment of giant recruitment companies to hire house helps for Saudi families on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. They will spare the citizens the burden of sponsorship because these companies themselves will be the main sponsors. They will be responsible for the accommodation and medical treatment of the housemaids. The companies will also compensate the employers in case their housemaids escaped.
The citizens welcomed this idea despite the high fees these companies would ask for. The idea, however, did not materialize. The black market for housemaids is not only existing, but flourishing. It has become a human trafficking haven.
Why is the situation of manpower in companies and establishments different? Why is there a black market for housemaids and not for other workers, though the labor laws are the same?
These questions need clear answers, not ambiguous ones like those given by the NRC.
