DOHA: Manila is planning to impose a ban on the recruitment of housemaids to Qatar and some other GCC countries on the ground that these countries do not have adequate laws to protect the rights of domestic workers.
An approval of a resolution from the governing board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is being awaited for the ban to be imposed.
There are an estimated 26,000 Filipina maids in Qatar with an increasing number of households preferring domestic help from the Philippines since they are considered well-behaved, literate and well-trained.
Contacted for comment, the Philippine Embassy here said it has nothing to say on the issue until the above resolution is approved.
However, media reports emanating from Manila suggest that the government of the Philippines is likely to approve a resolution sooner rather than later putting a blanket ban on the deployment of maids to Qatar, UAE and Kuwait.
Manila has been taking serious objections to the fact that Qatar does not have a labor law that covers domestic helpers. And in the absence of such legislation, domestic workers do not enjoy basic rights like a day off in the week and fixed working hours.
Qatar, it may be recalled, has recently announced that it planned to allow local manpower agencies to recruit maids from countries such as Myanmar, Nepal, Kenya and Tanzania, among others.
Manpower agencies here, on their part, have been blaming the government of the Philippines for introducing tough conditions, including fixing quite high wages, for recruiting maids.
The agencies, as a result, charge up to QR10,000 to supply a Filipina maid to a household -- a sum prospective employers say is exorbitant.
According to the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Qatar, Qatar is the third largest country host to Filipino domestic helpers following Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong which rank first and second, respectively.
Saudi Arabia has recently banned the recruitment of Filipina maids. It is expected that there will be a 50 percent decline in the deployment of Filipino household workers once the proposed resolution will be approved by the POEA.
Philippine Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz was quoted as saying that there is such a recommendation from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which finds that the three Gulf countries could not guarantee their protection. The POEA governing board has yet to make a decision. Household workers including housemaids, drivers and caregivers are not included under the Qatar labour law and the bilateral labour agreement between the Philippines and Qatar.
© The Peninsula 2011
