“I WISH my Indonesian maid returned one day.” I found this remark on Twitter as part of a sarcastic poem that spoke about the sufferings of the Saudi families resulting from the ban on the recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia. I borrowed the phrase, with thanks, from the poet and used it as a title for this article. After the cessation of recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia and the Philippines before that, thousands of Saudi families faced a real dilemma. The cost of releasing a housemaid from her sponsor rose to SR30,000 and more. Cases of the housemaids running away (huroub) increased. They looked for employment elsewhere with better pay. The crisis was further complicated by recruitment of maids from Ethiopia and other African countries who were accused of many crimes. Many of them were not interested in work. A large number of them have either escaped from their original employers or remained with them like time bombs waiting to explode and commit more crimes. At the beginning of the crisis, many citizens supported the Ministry of Labor in its inflexible attitude in negotiations with Indonesia and the Philippines. They asked the ministry not to make concessions that might undermine the rights of employers. Now that the crisis has protracted for so long and many problems concerning the substitute housemaids appeared, we implore the ministry not to be too rigid in its stance and to understand the demands of the other side. The ministry should make quick moves to approve the mechanisms that would ensure the housemaid with timely payment of her salary and protect her against any violence or harassment from her employer. These are two key points that the Indonesian side is concentrating on in its negotiations with the ministry. The housemaid should be given a weekly day off and should be compensated financially if she is asked to work during her days off. This, however, does not mean that the ministry should overlook or sacrifice the rights of the employer. The ministries of labor and interior should take strict measures against runaway maids and also against the brokers who encourage them to escape and find jobs for them with other employers. The slackness in this regard, which has continued for decades, should immediately end. The worry and anxiety of Saudi families resulting from the stoppage of recruitment from the southeast Asian countries make it imperative on the Labor Ministry to move quickly to end the problem. The issue should not be kept hanging for too long.
