http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=64042&d=20&m=5&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Friday, 20, May, 2005 (11, Rabi` al-Thani, 1426)
Agreement Spells Out Better Facilities for Indonesian
Maids
K.S. Ramkumar, Arab News
JEDDAH, 20 May 2005 - Indonesian housemaids will once
again start coming to Saudi Arabia following new bilateral arrangements.
The special committee formed by the Ministry of Labor
had meetings with visiting officials from Indonesia in Riyadh and arrangements
have been worked out under which maids are to get a better deal, an Indonesian
diplomatic source said.
The Kingdom has been the largest market for Indonesian
domestic staff, issuing about 15,000 visas monthly for maids. Indonesia
suspended manpower exports to the Kingdom on Feb. 2, 2003, to implement
sweeping administrative reforms at local recruitment agencies.
In the absence of Indonesian maids, the Kingdom had
increased its dependence on Philippine and Sri Lankan maids, and also had plans
to get them from Cambodia and Vietnam.
An official letter in connection with the agreement is
being forwarded to officials concerned with the recruitment of maids in
Indonesia.
Under the new arrangements, Indonesian maids will be
paid a monthly salary ranging from SR750 to SR900 and will be entitled to a
weekly off or SR25 in lieu thereof. They will also be entitled to leave with
pay if they fall sick. In the event of a maid's death, the sponsor will make
burial arrangements locally or transport the body back home.
The sponsors will bear all costs related to their maids
including air tickets, accommodation, food and health care. They will also
facilitate and bear the expenses of maids who wish to perform Haj or Umrah.
Above all, the sponsors will treat their maids according to Shariah. The
sponsors will also bear the responsibility if their maids suffer from
psychological or physical disorders at the workplace.
More than eight million of the Kingdom's estimated 23
million population are foreign nationals who work in largely menial or
blue-collar positions. About one million work as domestics, such as gardeners
and maids. The vast majority of the 400,000 maids are women from Asia.
Maids have also been running away from their sponsors
for a variety of reasons, including non-payment of wages and maltreatment by
family members. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta and the Indonesian Manpower
Ministry have held meetings to remove the obstacles to labor recruitment from
the country at a time when 40,000 labor visas had been held up at the embassy.
There were three major impediments to recruiting
domestic servants from Indonesia. First, the manpower ministry allowed only 27
of 400 Indonesian recruitment firms to handle Saudi labor applications. Second,
the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh wanted a fee of $25 to endorse the work
contract of each maid, but the Kingdom had rejected the scheme. And third, the
manpower ministry had imposed a quota system on recruitment firms, limiting the
number of visas they could arrange each month.
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