Filipino household service workers (HSWs), who are already in a tight spot over conflicting recruitment rules in the UAE and the Philippines, face additional pressure as Indonesian maids have started coming to the the Gulf country again after a brief interval.
Around 900 Indonesian women arrived in the UAE in 2016 under a new recruitment system called ‘outsourcing model’ introduced by Indonesia, Gulf News quoted a top Indonesian diplomat as saying.
“Around 1,000 domestic workers arrived here since the Indonesian Embassy in Abu Dhabi introduced a pilot system of ‘outsourced model’ in mid-2016. Around 90 percent of them [900] are women, who came mainly through two recruitment companies,” Husin Bagis, Indonesian Ambassador to the UAE, reportedly said.
Last year, an official in the Philippine Consulate in Dubai was quoted as saying that the competent authorities in his country had decided to lift the ban on Filipino domestic workers coming to the UAE. And domestic workers can come in again under the unified contract approved by the UAE Ministry of Interior in June 2014, the official added. However, the report was refuted later.
The Indonesian embassy has authorized a total of seven recruitment companies and the system is now open to all from early this month, he was quoted as saying.
The new system originally introduced by Indonesia in 2014 does not permit recruitment of ‘housemaids’ who are supposed to do all household chores, the envoy reportedly said.
But, seven other categories of domestic workers — both men and women — can be recruited only through recruitment companies authorized by the Indonesian Embassy. Individual employers can no longer recruit domestic workers. The employers [families] have to approach the authorized recruitment companies for the same, Bagis was quoted as saying.
Janu Susilo, Labor Attache at the Indonesian Embassy said, the companies are responsible to provide visa and monthly salary to the workers. The sponsorship of the worker will be with the company that will send him/her to the workplace.
Flexibility to change workplace is the advantage of the outsourcing model. The worker is under the sponsorship of recruitment company that can easily move him/her to a different workplace, if he/she is not comfortable, he added.
Susilo reportedly said between 90,000 and 100,000 Indonesians are living in the UAE. “Between 40,000 and 60,000 of them are workers, of which , 80 percent of them are female domestic workers. The rest of them are skilled workers and professionals,” he said.
