With Ramadan only a little more than a week away, many Saudi families are desperately seeking a housemaid. The maid market is booming with housemaids available on an hourly basis and demanding exorbitant wages. Taking advantage of this “high demand” season, many housemaids leave their employers at the last minute after having promised to work for an agreed upon amount and stipulated conditions. Recruitment agencies, which earlier called the shots, are now a thing of the past. They have been replaced by female brokers who will not provide a housemaid for anything less than SR3,000, an amount which is far more than the standard charge of SR1,200 to SR1,500 per month. “A sharp increase in salaries – from SR1,200 to SR2,000 – has been witnessed,” said Umm Fawwaz, a housewife looking for a temporary housemaid to help her in Ramadan. Another housewife, Samira Mohsen, said she paid a commission of SR200 three times but still has no housemaid and is still looking for one. “I offered SR1,500 to each one. The first one stayed for two hours only, the second asked for two more helpers which I am not willing to provide, and the third had too many conditions.” Cases of housemaids running away from their sponsors usually increase at this time of the year. They leave because they are able to command larger salaries of around SR2,500 per month, particularly as many Saudi families find it difficult to manage without house help during the fasting month. The pressing need for housemaids during Ramadan drives some families to employ illegal foreign maids, particularly in larger cities such as Jeddah, Riyadh and Makkah. However, a housemaid who successfully escapes often gives her original sponsor the headache of having to recruit a replacement, which may cost as much as SR10,000 in addition to residence fees. Moreover, the maid might steal from the house before running away. As Ramadan nears, a growing number of housemaids flee from their sponsors searching for better pay. “These housemaids will run away even if their sponsors are regularly paying them their monthly salaries,” Muslih Al-Rifae, a Saudi citizen said. Al-Rifae said many brokers from their native lands encourage the housemaids to escape for better payment during Ramadan. Most of these brokers hang around malls and supermarkets hunting for easy prey. Ahlaam Muhammad, a working Saudi woman, said she had to recruit a housemaid for SR60 a day after her legal housemaid who stayed with her for five months escaped last month. “I had to recruit a housemaid at any cost because of my children who are at home while I go out to my work.” Eritrean broker, Ruwaida, said she will not have any housemaids left for recruitment by the first week of Ramadan. “The ones who get SR1,000 to SR1,200 at other times get SR1,500 to SR2,000 in Ramadan,” she said. However, she added, there are some housemaids who work on an hourly basis for fixed amounts. “They charge SR150 for a day of work, or eight working hours – SR19 per hour – which is adequate for families who need the housemaid for Ramadan only.” Moni, an Indonesian broker, says the daily wages for a maid during Ramadan range between SR100 to SR150. “My commission is between SR200 to SR500, depending on how soon the family wants the housemaid to be provided.” Recruiting housemaids from overseas can be very expensive and can involve a number of problems as well. Nasser Al-Subaie said he recruited a housemaid from Indonesia and paid a lot of money to cover her expenses. When she landed at Jeddah airport, immigration officials discovered that she could not enter the Kingdom as she had a criminal record. “She was sent back home and I lost the money I had spent on her recruitment,” he said. An official from the National Recruitment Committee at the Saudi Council of Chambers said Saudi embassies abroad would be connected to the same fingerprinting system currently in use at airports to prevent foreign recruits with criminal records from returning to the country.
