The Ethiopian government has imposed a six-month ban on its citizens from traveling to Saudi Arabia for work.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said the conditions of Ethiopians working in Saudi Arabia, particularly domestic workers, had continued to get worse.
“Effective next month, we will not send our citizens to Saudi Arabia to work for a period of (at least) six months,” he said in Ethiopian Parliament.
Abdulbaqi Ahmad Ajlan, the Saudi Ambassador to Ethiopia, said the embassy has not received official directives from the Ethiopian government to stop exporting workers to the Kingdom and that the embassy is still issuing visas and completing paperwork for those who had obtained two-year visas.
Yehia Al-Muqbel, chairman of the Recruitment Committee at the Jeddah Chamber, accused the Ethiopian government of creating obstacles to send housemaids to the Kingdom. “The Ethiopian government wants to stop exporting home maids to the ingdom through delaying their travel procedures. The Ministry of Labor, however, is still looking for new markets for recruiting housemaids.”
The recruitment suspension comes in the wake of several incidents involving Ethiopian housemaids, the most recent of which includes the stabbing of a Saudi employer by a housemaid.
Ethiopia imposes KSA travel ban
