Saudi turns to Vietnam, Cambodia for maids [-More human abuse of Cambodian maids ahead?]

Tuesday, June 12, 2012
By Staff
Emirates 247

Saudi Arabia has turned to Vietnam and Cambodia for its domestic workers’ needs following a rift with its long-standing housemaid suppliers Indonesia and the Philippines, newspapers in the oil-rich Gulf Kingdom said on Tuesday.

The two southeast Asian nationals have told the world’s dominant oil power they are willing to send maids to the country if some conditions are met.

They include giving housemaids at least eight hour break every day, a reasonable monthly salary which must be transferred to the bank, health insurance and end of service benefits.

“Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to export domestic workers to Saudi Arabia as new hiring measures were enforced in the Kingdom,” Sharq daily said.

Saudi Arabia, the largest base for Asian housemaids in the Middle East, has been at loggerheads with Indonesia and Philippines, who banned their maids from travelling to the Kingdom to demand better work conditions, including higher wages and other financial and social benefits. The ban followed reports of widespread abuse of maids by their employers.

Several months of negotiations between Saudi Arabia and those two Asian nations have failed to break the deadlock.

More than two million housemaids, mostly from Asia, work in Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy with over a fifth of the world’s proven oil wealth.