DOHA: Filipina housemaids are no more available while rules for recruiting maids from Indonesia have been made tougher, say manpower agencies.
“The Indonesian embassy in Qatar has fixed a quota for each manpower agency. According to the new rules, one agency can get a maximum six job contracts (of housemaids) attested by the embassy in two weeks,” Ammar Mahmoud from the Al Ghuwair manpower agency was quoted as saying by a local Arabic daily.
“It is a lengthy process and they are delaying it purposely”, he added. He said visas for Filipino housemaids remain suspended by the Qatari authorities. “We don’t know the reasons,” he said. “ We did not get any information about new work contracts for Filipina housemaids. What we received from the Ministry of Labour were names of new countries for recruiting maids.” The Peninsula
About recruiting maids from European countries as an alternative, he said, “A delegation from the Ministry of Labour had visited some European countries but we do not know whether they (those countries) agreed to send housemaids to Qatar or not.”
He said so far, his company didn’t get any request to recruit housemaids from European countries.
“However, some people asked us about European housemaids, their behaviour, salaries, and recruitment charges. But we do not know any thing about them because we have not yet started recruitment,” said Mahmoud.
Bangladeshi housemaids are available for monthly salaries ranging from QR750 to QR800 and the charge for their recruitment is about QR6,500.
However, recruitment charges for Indonesian maids have soared to QR10,000 because manpower agencies in Indonesia are also charging more, he added.
Recruitment charges for Ethiopian housemaids range between QR6,000 and QR6,500. Filipina housemaids are still coming on visas approved earlier and their monthly salaries range from QR850 to QR900.
An official of another recruiting agency said the Indonesian embassy had resumed endorsing job contracts for housemaids, but one agency cannot get more than 10 contracts attested in two weeks.
