Humane treatment of domestic helpers and paying their salary on time are among the main factors that inspire them to stay in the job, a number of social media users pointed out in a survey carried out by local Arabic daily Arrayah.
The online participants in the survey stressed that employers should provide the domestic helpers with proper and suitable accommodation and favourable working conditions and avoid exhausting them with overload of tasks.
The respondents suggested that such workers should be allowed adequate periods of rest and good treatment by the employer. In this way, they would continue in the job for as long as possible and employers can avoid the phenomenon of absconding workers.
Some survey participants were of the view that the procedures to hire domestic workers should be reviewed and updated to guarantee the rights of both parties. Some suggested that recruitment agencies should be allowed to retain domestic helpers as their legal employer and let them work for the new employer according to a time defined contract.
Accordingly, the recruitment agency will be responsible to pay the salary of the worker on regular basis after receiving it from the new employer. Besides, the new employer will have to pay all the fees for recruitment and other related legal procedures. In this way, the recruitment agency will be completely responsible in case of absconding workers, and should supply the employer with an alternative worker.
Some owners of recruitment agencies pointed out that the domestic helpers contracts are issued and approved by the Ministry of Labour and they strictly follow the stipulations and standards to avoid any potential legal liabilities. They considered the recruitment agency as a mediator between the worker and the employer and not a training or employment entity.
In response to the need to provide alternative workers in case of absconding workers, they stressed that this is practically difficult, due to the lengthy recruitment procedures at the source countries and stated that the agency is not authorised to retain workers as alternative in such cases, Arrayah added.
