The Shoura Council will soon examine a proposal to allow Saudi citizens to hire housemaids through recruitment offices in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Fahd Bin Juma, member of the council's finance committee, has presented a recommendation to the council in this regard, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported. The move is aimed at meeting the huge demand for housemaids in the local market. The cost of hiring of housemaids has become exorbitant in the Kingdom, compared to other countries in the Middle East region, and this has resulted in a flourishing black market operated by expatriate brokers. Several illegal firms are engaged in hiring domestic helps and they charge citizens up to SR30,000 in recruitment expenses. Bin Juma said his proposal, if approved, would open the doors for hiring housemaids through recruitment firms in other GCC states with coordination between the Saudi Ministry of Labor and concerned agencies in those countries. He hoped that the move would enable Saudi citizens to recruit trained housemaids at cheaper rates. The rate for hiring a domestic help in the Kingdom is around four times higher than the rates in other GCC states, he said. "The charges for hiring housemaids from some countries shot up to SR25,000, putting a huge financial burden on ordinary Saudi households. The situation aggravated with the rising cases of runaway maids after the families had spent huge amounts of money to hire them," he said, adding that these maids are being lured by middlemen who find them jobs in other households illegally. Bin Juma said his proposal won the backing of the senior officials at the GCC secretariat general who visited the Shoura Council recently. "This move would reinforce the efforts to achieve economic integration among the GCC states," he added.
