Dhaka sets new guidelines for recruitment of housemaids

JEDDAH: The Bangladeshi government, represented by its Ministry of Labor, has come up with five new guidelines and regulations that are expected to be implemented at the beginning of 2017.
These regulations aim to regulate domestic recruitment to Saudi Arabia, and guarantee the recruitment of those qualified to work, in addition to limiting brokers and decreasing the return of workers to their countries after they finish their contracts. These regulations also aim to maintain the rights of all parties and increase the number of domestic workers in the Kingdom.
A source at the Bangladeshi Consulate in Jeddah confirmed that the country’s Ministry of Labor is working on the establishment of a number of lists and regulations including decreasing the time needed to extract a medical and security certificate to one week instead of three to four weeks; increasing the number of recruitment offices in Bangladesh and imposing more supervision on them; increasing the training period for those registered in centers allocated to training maids to 45 days instead of 30 days; establishing a database to register the names of qualified workers and follow up on their recruitment in the Kingdom to avoid the recruitment of unqualified maids.
Hussein Al-Harithi, owner of a recruitment office, said the new regulations will contribute to the facilitation of recruitment and the decrease of the recruitment period to three months instead of seven months.
The Bangladeshi recruitment file has been met with some obstacles that contributed to the late arrival of workers, such as the increased cost of contracts with Bangladeshi offices; the recruitment of one male worker for each three female workers; some maids refusing to travel without their families; the increased demand, lack of supply and low wages which led to the accumulation of around 60 percent of visas issued by the Ministry of Labor in recruitment offices.