GCC to have unified job contracts for maids: report

Gulf oil producers have agreed to formulate a unified job contract for foreign housemaids in a bid to regulate the growing market for domestic workers following disputes between Asian labour exporters and some regional states.

Labour Ministers from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, among the world’s largest housemaid importers, agreed on the unified job measures at talks in Bahrain this week and said the contract would be enforced in early 2014.

“The Ministers sent the draft contract to a special GCC committee to study it and make recommendations…they asked the committee to prepare the final draft of the contract in early 2014,” the Saudi Arabic language daily Al Eqtisadiah said.

“The plan is intended to have a single job contract in the GCC for all housemaids hired from other countries…it will ensure that the interests of both the domestic workers and employers will be preserved and protected.”

GCC labour officials discussed the issue during talks in Dubai early this year following disputes between some members and Asian nations, including Indonesia and the Philippines over the wages of their domestic workers and other issues.

The meeting also followed furore over mistreatment of Asian maids in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as well as Riyadh’s decision last year to suspend the recruitment of domestic workers from some Asian nations.

Sitting atop a fifth of the world’s recoverable oil deposits, Saudi Arabia suspended visas for Indonesian and Filipina housemaids in early 2011 in response to curbs on their travel at home following a series of incidents involving the maids in the Kingdom.

Saudi newspapers have said the Kingdom is nearing a final agreement with those two countries on new maid job contracts that will guarantee the rights of those workers.

More than two million housemaids from the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other Asian and African nations work in Saudi Arabia and other GCC members.

The kingdom has been under fire from local and foreign human rights groups over the death of some housemaids, who have been reportedly killed by their employers. Pressure mounted in late 2010 following news that an Indonesian housemaid was severely tortured by her female employer.

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