Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The Ministry of Labor has currently disabled the option to recruit housemaids from Bangladesh due to systematic procedures but expects 500,000 housemaids to arrive in the Kingdom in the near future, Al-Madinah daily reported. The Ministry of Labor's Musaned e-service, where the information of housemaids' nationalities, recruitment costs and duration of recruitment is clarified, has disabled the option to recruit Bangladeshi housemaids. The e-service allows citizens to apply for housemaids from Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam and Mauritania. Sponsorship of a housemaid from Sri Lanka and India costs SR22,000 each. Mauritanian housemaids cost SR20,000, Vietnamese housemaids cost SR16,000 and SR14,000 for Filipino housemaids. The Ministry of Labor has signed an agreement with the Bangladeshi government to allow recruitment of expatriates with no restriction on gender or work field. The ministry announced it will appeal to the Bangladeshi government to help make up for the lack of housemaids from that country this year. The Ministry of Labor's spokesman Tayseer Al-Mufrij said the Kingdom plans to receive 500,000 Bangladeshi housemaids once the systematic procedures are completed by the Dhaka government. “The cost of sponsoring and recruiting Bangladeshi housemaids will be left for the private sector in both countries to decide. The Kingdom's private sector representative in our communications with Bangladesh is the National Recruitment Committee,” said Al-Mufrij. He added the ministry is not responsible for deciding on recruitment costs but it is responsible for following up with the recruitment offices and ensuring that no exploitation takes place. “We oblige the recruitment companies and offices to upload their financial reports and statements on Musaned. Our job here is to visit the companies and offices to ensure that what they have uploaded matches their actual documentations,” said Mufrij.
