Bangladeshi Housemaids Reluctant to Work in KSA

JEDDAH — Nearly a third of Bangladeshi housemaids enrolled for pre-departure briefing at special training centers in Dhaka do not want to work in the Kingdom, Al-Madina newspaper reported quoting an official source at the Bangladeshi Embassy in Riyadh.

The source said a number of housemaids who have completed training had second thoughts about working in the Kingdom due to a variety of reasons, including the differences in language, customs and traditions.

The source, who did not want to be named, pointed out that the private training centers did not have enough experience in providing pre-departure training to the workers nor did they know about the living conditions in Saudi Arabia.

“They were simply offering training how to make more dough,” he added.

The source said the Dhaka government was planning to establish its own training centers to equip Bangladeshi manpower coming to the Kingdom and to increase the training period from the current 30 days to 90 days.

“All registered housemaids will be obliged to attend the training programs and anyone who fails to complete the period will not be allowed to travel to the Kingdom for work,” he said.

The source said about 50 percent of the Bangladeshi housemaids who actually arrived in the Kingdom refused to work and opted to rerun to their country.

Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, owner of a recruitment office in Jeddah, said the refusal of Bangladeshi housemaids to work in the Kingdom led to an increase in the number of the recruitment requests, further complicating the thorny issue.

“Since the recruitment of housemaids from Bangladesh has started, about 50,000 housemaids were sent back home because they refused to work after arriving in the Kingdom,” he said.

According to Al-Ghamdi, the high rejection rate was because the housemaids were unable to get used to the lifestyle in the Kingdom and could not acclimatize themselves to Saudi customs and traditions.

According to other sources, about 60 percent of work visas issued by the Labor Ministry for housemaids from Bangladesh are gathering dust in the recruitment offices.

They said the recruitment offices in Bangladesh were making this issue extremely difficult by raising their fees and setting impossible conditions.

(Source: SaudiGazette.com.sa)