Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Sponsors affected by escaping Asian housemaids have approached Minister of Labor and Social Development Ahmed Al-Rajhi via his Twitter account presenting their predicament to him and urging him to review the agreements under which they were recruited. The victims said this phenomenon has now snowballed into a crisis. They said solution to this perennial problem even eluded three successive labor ministers. They warned that the owners of temporary recruitment offices pick up the escapee housemaids and relocate them at high salaries. The victims described the owners of the temporary recruitment offices as "gangs" who are anxiously waiting to put their hands on the escapee housemaids. Majed Bin Fetin, a lawyer and a legal consultant, said probationary period for the housemaid should be increased from three to more than six months and added that this period should be stipulated in the contract which the two parties sign. He said the victim has the rights to file a lawsuit against the recruitment office or the housemaid herself to be reimbursed with the costs of recruitment. "The problem, however, remains to be on how to bring the housemaid to the court," he added. Fahd Mahjoub, another lawyer, suggests to redraft the recruitment contract so as to avoid the loopholes which help housemaids to escape. Khaled Al-Mihmadi, a third lawyer, said some housemaids escape within a couple of days after the end of the probationary period. "This indicates that there is a clandestine agreement between the housemaid and the makeshift recruitment offices to employ her at higher pay," he said. Some market sources suggest imposition of heavy fines on recruitment offices which have imported the escapees and to prevent them from recruiting housemaids in future. The victims who bitterly attacked the recruitment offices for the escaping of housemaids, said the offices should keep the passports of the housemaids and to link them to the labor ministry and the concerned security organs to prevent them from escaping. A citizen, who did not want to be identified, said two of his Asian housemaids escaped in a matter of five months while another said his housemaid left him after one month of service.
