'Maids crisis' - what are you thoughts?
The local social media these days are abuzz with talk of how recruitment charges for housemaids have been soaring unchecked.
This has been attributed to a host of factors, the most important being restrictions imposed on recruitment of housemaids by some Asian countries.
At the same time, Qatari households rue that no one listens to their side of the story.
In a column published in this newspaper late last August, Ahmed Al Muhannady outlined the challenges Qatari sponsors of maids face.
The cost of hiring a maid runs into thousands of riyals and she has the option of saying no after working in a family for three months.
If a family asks her to continue, she can run away. In that case the sponsor has to pay to repatriate her.
“Or, she might even fake a suicide attempt, so the sponsor must take her to hospital,” he said.
“Then, she leaves for her home country at our expense.”
The irony is that when a sponsor files a lawsuit against a runaway maid or servant for attempted suicide, the defendant is released pending trial and stays at the sponsor’s residence.
“How does the sponsor ensure that the maid does not escape again or attempt suicide in revenge?”
The maid is hospitalised and the state pays QR1,500 per day. “If you don’t like to work and the sponsor refuses to send you home, just scratch your wrist or consume an antiseptic solution,” said Muhannady, hinting that such actions by maids were not uncommon.
But agency and diplomatic sources say excessive work might be leading some maids to resort to such tricks.
“This has prompted the embassies of some manpower exporting countries to restrict the numbers of maids coming in from their countries,” a recruitment business source said.
The result is that there is a shortage while demand continues to be high. At least two embassies have fixed limited quotas for agencies.
Last May, when the Indonesian embassy introduced a fixed quota system for manpower agencies, many of them suffered huge financial losses.
“We were one of them. At the time we had got 200 visas for Indonesian maids by spending tens of thousands of riyals,” said an official from a manpower agency not wanting his name in print.
Others, however, said they had begun getting maids from Bangladesh.
“When one source of import dries the other opens up. We get about 50 Bangladeshi maids on average a month,” he said.
There is demand for these maids as the recruitment charges are relatively lower, at QR8,200, and so are the wages — QR800 a month.
Source: The Peninsula
Image: QL Flickr group
We could end this crisis if any official govt. body from Qatar contact with us. We also don't want any misshapen. We have expert maids and Qatar have demands of it. So we can come up with a better solution for the good of both side.
I hope we can close this gap between us and Qatar officials to recruiting any kind of workers.
e-mail: [email protected]
Don't Judge All people by the actions of other people.
You pay them peanuts and you expect them to be your personal assistant at you beck and call all day. That cannot be. ..The creator and the government too has been nice and generous to you so you can easily afford to be a bit generous to the poor workers who do all your dirty work
That was the plan Thelonius, but the darn condoms broke...twice.
Fact of life is that you need money in order to buy food, which feeds kids. Most people have to work to get that money. So it's a bit silly to say " But I HAVE to work!" No, foremost you HAVE to be a mother or a father, THEN you have to work."
Hard to parents kids that have starved to death...
I was 1being sarcastic dohabunny, but maybe not sarcastic enough. I did make a point of saying "grown adults", although I will concede that giving birth has generally being "women's work". Men don't seem to have co-opted that task just yet.
Sarcasm aside, I don't think housework is men's work or women's work. It's house work that could easily be done by anyone of either gender with the time and motivation. I don't begrudge anyone the luxury of having a maid, but I do get ticked off with the notion that a maid is some sort of basic human right, and the government needs to ensure that they remain affordable.
If you can't afford the fees that the recruitment company charges you to bring in a maid, you're too poor to have a maid. End of story.
It is not QAR.800. Total expense comes up to 4000-4500 a month: accommodation, food, clothes, medical insurance and medicaments, vacation, etc. Hundreds of thousands of workers in Qatar are employed by the companies with similar salaries.
Although there are a lot of cases when the maid runs away due to harsh conditions, there are plenty who still runs away from very warm and welcoming families, because someone promised them a "heaven in Qatar"… then these maids get vanished, stay on expired visas, become illegal, and who knows where and how they live... I know such cases. My friend used to have a maid. My friend has provided her with everything, treated her equally... This maid started buying lands in her home country form her “miserable” salary… when the maid was leaving for her vacation, my friend bought for her family back home the entire extra suitecase of the gifts. When the maid came back from her vacation, she brought 7-8 photos of her relatives who expressed a high desire to be hired as maids in Qatar. One year later this maid run away, because someone has promised her QAR.200 more.. Who knows where is this maid now, how does she live, and IF she is alive at all... For me, everything should be done by the rules. If the maid doesn't like her conditions, and wants to terminate her employment agreement, she has to be equipped with clear information, and tools of how to act in such situations. Running away or attempting a suicide is not a solution... starting the process of "changing the job" this awful way will lead them to only worse situation.
Fair enough ask yourself why so many expats have a maid they can't afford at home it really makes me laugh when I read such a comments. I have 4 kids and I won't use a maid or just to help my wife few hours (cleaning) and giving her a descent salary. What I see where I live is a lot of expat with only 1 or 2 kids with full time maid at home for the same ridiculous salary so...............
:o)
Brit, not at all. What I pointed out was not about the use of maids but that his sarcastic remarks implied that housework is women's work.
dohabunny: Obviously, sarcasm is lost on you.
@Fubar, so you are implying that the maids are doing 'women's' work (ie cooking, cleaning & taking care of the kids they gave birth to)? Where I come from, there are men and women, who have families, who have full time jobs and careers as well. Yes there are women like that in my country and even here in Qatar. I do not know where you come from, maybe from a mythical man's world where you have self-cleaning toilets and sugar plum fairies come dancing to your door with ready cooked roast meals.
ah...that's what take out and food deliveries are for. the rest the children should learn to do themselves if their parents can't
Since when have women ever been capable of feeding and cleaning and looking after their own children? It's impossible, and that's why it never, ever happened in history.
The idea that grown adults can cook their own food and clean their own house and raise their own kids is a horrible western value, and not part of the local, traditional, historical culture.
After all, why would the good Lord give women the ability to give birth to children if women were able to care for them without maids? It simply makes no sense.
Poor sponsors, there must be some institution to help them, it is very stressful in first period after maid is run away...:(, so many dust and dishes and this noisy kids, OMG..and we gave her everything, even key from the fridge, and new nightshirt...agree with first comment: It's disgusting!
wirehead: The internet can't clean, cook, make tea , wash, dry, iron, take out the garbage, act as nanny or change nappies.
if they want to save money they should just let the tv (or the internet) raise their children. that's what my parents did when we were old enough and didn't want to deal with maids anymore. it worked pretty well, i think.
So true , folks ...... Sun , 03.11.2013 , 15.23 hrs ....
unsatisfied abusers crying out loud, how would like it to be !? read this one
http://dohanews.co/rights-groups-urge-qatar-and-neighbors-to-protect-maids/
If what the maid does in your house is only worth paying 800 riyals a month for, then it would be easy enough to do it yourself.
If you wouldn't do her job, then ask yourself how much you would want to be paid to do it. I'm sure it would be more than 800 riyals - that's less than what a lot of these families would spend on a single meal.
Kadamas in Gulf countries are the less fortunate hard workers..aside from physical and mental abuse they are paid less as in very less. It a shame.
What a load of twaddle..
"If a family asks her to continue, she can run away. In that case the sponsor has to pay to repatriate her.
“Or, she might even fake a suicide attempt, so the sponsor must take her to hospital,” he said."
If she runs away or attempts suicide, then surely the sponsor should question WHY and whether it is his / her fault.
As doe Bangladeshi maids for 800QR per month. This is akin to slavery.