Filipino maids’ arrival delayed by shortage

RIYADH: The Philippine Embassy has said that it is not easy to bring Filipino domestic workers, also called household service workers (HSW), to Saudi Arabia quickly because of procedures and also shortage of maids in the country.

The embassy and the consulate are being accused of delaying the approval of the applications for recruitment of domestic workers but that it’s not true.
“It takes about four months to bring a domestic worker,” Ambassador Ezzedin H. Tago said, adding that he himself has experienced this because there’s a procedure to be followed.
In an interview with an Arabic daily, the envoy said the current procedure being implemented in the recruitment of domestic helps is in accordance with streamlined operations.
He said that at the moment, the embassy and the Philippine consulate general in Jeddah could only approve 300 contracts daily.
“There are 150 recruitment offices in the Saudi capital and each one wants the embassy and the consulate general in Jeddah to expedite approval of the applications,” he said.
He said that this is not possible because “we want to organize the hiring process due to our knowledge of the status of employment and the ability of these offices on labor recruitment of domestic helpers.”
One reason for the delay is the fact that domestic helps are not always available in the Philippines for recruitment or deployment in the Kingdom. This is because the Philippines is not only supplying Saudi Arabia with domestic workers but other countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates as well.
The Filipino diplomat said that it’s not easy for the Philippines to send and deploy domestic workers in the Kingdom in a specific time. “I don’t think that the complaints against the embassy and the consulate are reasonable.”
At present, there are 810,000 Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia, he added.