Madinah newspaper EPISODES about runaway maids have exceeded in their numbers as compared to episodes of TV serials that crossed hundreds. It seems that this trend is a non-stop one. In my view, the reason for this is the mismanagement of the employment mechanisms for housemaids and inaction on the part of some of the concerned officials. This has resulted in aggravating the problem of runaway maids which often proves beneficial for these maids. I am not denying that we citizens have a role to play. Nearly 80 percent of this problem is due to the prevailing system, rules and regulations and the official procedures while 20 percent is because of the lack of cooperation on the part of citizens. If we look at the list of supply and demand for housemaids in the employment market, we can see that the demand is much higher than the supply. This has resulted in increasing recruitment charges significantly. The demand for domestic labor is not restricted to house jobs but extends to duties at wedding halls, hotels and restaurants, in addition to cleaning works at the accommodation of Haj pilgrims at the holy sites. There is also a huge demand for domestic labor seasonally, such as during Ramadan and Haj. For this also, the system is responsible and not the citizens. Addressing the problem of housemaids and reviewing the regulations for their recruitment and employment are the responsibilities of the concerned authorities and not that of the citizens. In the case of runaway maids, the system should be held accountable for it but in fact the burden falls on the shoulders of sponsors. I had written about this issue several times earlier, the most recent being four months ago. That article stressed the need for working out a quick solution to the problem through enacting a series of rules and regulations aimed at regulating the local employment market for domestic workers. In an article titled ‘Incentives for runaway maids', I mentioned about certain discrepancies prevailing when housemaids run away from their sponsors. These included the long procedures for reporting the runaway cases, lack of punitive measures against the runaway maids and the low cost for employing runaway maids compared to the cost of recruiting a maid from abroad. After six years, my question is: When is this saga of runaway maids ever going to end? __
