Riyadh, April 16: Saudi to hire 10,000 maids from B’desh Dubai: Saudi Arabia will recruit 10,000 housemaids from Bangladesh every year after the Philippines put stringent conditions including a minimum 400 dollars monthly salary for maids.
Countries like India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines restricted maids’ recruitment from the Gulf Arab states after scores of cases of physical abuses, nonpayment of salary and low wages came to light.
Bangladesh has emerged as one of the top three sources of labour in these countries thanks to the low wages at which they could be hired, though a few years ago some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries banned recruitment citing violent behaviour by the Bangla workers.
Arab News daily said the decision to take more maids from Bangladesh was taken after talks with officials in Dhaka yesterday. The maids would be paid only 640 riyals (about Rs 7000) a month.
An estimated 1.5 million Bangladeshis are currently working in the Kingdom.
–Agencies