The shortage of domestic workers before the spread of Covid-19 pandemic and during Ramadan has been a kind of ‘bone of contention’, an obsession and a headache for Kuwaiti families, because in most cases the workers either escape from the homes of sponsors and are sheltered by a handful of unscrupulous elements or for several other reasons.
In the midst of all this, a local Arabic daily said, this has increased the burden of Kuwaiti housewives due to the high cost of recruiting domestics, which has touched 1200 dinars, despite the ceiling being set at 900 dinars, and much of the blame is pointed in the direction of recruitment agencies for exaggerating hiring costs, in addition to other reasons that has made the permanent domestic worker a rare commodity.
Some owners of domestic labor recruitment offices attribute this phenomenon to three main reasons — lack of strictness in implementing the law penalizing sponsors who shelter fugitive workers; not stressing on the real estate owners not to rent apartments to domestic workers because many of them fall in the category of criminals and the conditions imposed on families to recruit domestic workers, forcing them to seek help from domestics who have escaped from their families.
Some say many Gulf countries give entry visa for everyone for 3 months and during this three months the person can find work and transfer visa on their sponsorship if the sponsor finds the person suitable including domestic workers and also because they find Kuwait labor market not lucrative especially the domestic sector and prefer to work in other Gulf countries.
It is also said some of the domestic workers are deceived and they discover after arriving here that the terms and work conditions were not the same that were mentioned and prefer to return home after the completion of the term of her contract, and in the event of approval, she requests to travel through specific Gulf countries or may agree to bear the value of her ticket to reach her destination.
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