The Saudi government's ban on Indonesian domestic workers may be lifted in January after the Indonesian authorities agreed in principle to drop their demands for sponsors to provide their fingerprints and plans of their houses, according to recruitment sources in the Eastern Province. They emphasized that there is now hope that the visas of 300,000 Indonesian workers, frozen since March, will be processed. The sources said a number of recruitment offices had received confirmation from official sources indicating that an agreement had been reached with the Indonesian authorities. This would speed up the return of Indonesian domestic workers to the Kingdom. They said the agreement would end the ban enforced by the Saudi government in August. This was when the Indonesian authorities said that workers would only be allowed back into Saudi Arabia if employers provide their fingerprints and plans of their houses. They said an Indonesian delegation, which met with Saudi officials in Riyadh recently, expressed its willingness to scrap these two conditions which Riyadh sees as an infringement of its sovereignty. The Saudi government has also protested demands that an employer has to appear in person at the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh to sign the unified contract. The sources said the recruitment offices are now waiting for official confirmation of this agreement. The sources added that agreement has been reached with insurance companies to issue policies for Indonesian domestic workers covering treatment, escapes and other matters. The insurance companies will honor all the conditions in the policies. The sources said the Indonesian authorities have dropped another condition, which would have fixed the salary of a maid at SR1,000 a month. The salary will now remain at SR800. The two parties have agreed that the recruitment fees are subject to the economic principle of supply and demand and will range between SR8,000 and SR9,000. __
