In the first case of its kind, a citizen has won a court decision against a housemaid who ran away from her work just three months into her contract. The court ordered the housemaid to repay her sponsor all the money he spent on sponsorship fees. The housemaid's former employer Yousef A. said the case started last Ramadan when he paid SR5,300 to transfer the Indonesian housemaid's sponsorship to him for two years. Under the terms of their agreement, Yousef increased her salary to SR1,000 although the amount specified in the contact was only SR800. “She worked well in the first month but in the second month her performance was low and in the beginning of the third month she ran away. I searched for her everywhere and I found her on the same day she ran away. She was standing in front of the gate of the Housemaids' Affairs Center,” he said, according to a report in Al-Watan newspaper. Yousef tried to convince her to return to work but she said she did not want to work anymore as she had paid off all her debts and wanted to return home. He asked her if she wanted to transfer her sponsorship to another Saudi person but again she said no. Yousef then demanded that the housemaid repay the sponsorship fees and went to Riyadh District Court. The Committee on Solving Disputes took up the case and the process was carried out in the presence of a representative and interpreter from the Indonesian Embassy. “All attempts to convince the housemaid to work again or pay her sponsorship fees failed. When the judge asked me what I wanted from the housemaid, I told him I want her to work again for me or pay me the sponsorship fees,” Yousef said. The judge then issued an order to this effect and placed the housemaid in the Housemaids' Affairs Center. She has been forbidden to return home until she has repaid the sponsorship fees.
