Economic Incentives at play

Indonesia recently banned the recruitment of women from Indonesia to go to Saudi Arabia to work as maids. This was after an Indonesian maid killed her employer after he abused her thoroughly. Welcome to Saudi Justice. Anyway, so what happens after the ban? Read on MacDuff.

JEDDAH: Illegal housemaids in Jeddah have begun asking for huge salary increases following the decision to suspend recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Many families are reporting that the maids have threatened to walk out if their demands are not met, especially that Ramadan is one month away when demand for extra domestic help spikes

Gosh, Saudi Society will collapse without maids, eh? So what do you do?

Following the decision to stop maids from Indonesia and the Philippines, recruitment from countries like Ethiopia or Kenya and other countries came as an alternative choice to fill the demand for domestic labor in Saudi Arabia. Spokesman of the Ministry of Labor Hattab Al-Anzi hinted that the Kingdom would start allowing recruitment for domestic workers, including maids, from different countries. Several recruitment offices have begun shifting their focus toward African countries. “However, I personally doubt whether one or two nations will be able to cover the gap in the domestic house labor market ruled by Indonesia for some time now,” he added.

Most domestic workers are recruited from Indonesia, the Philippines (which was recently barred due to a dispute over minimum wage) and Sri Lanka. Egypt doesn’t allow women to travel to the Kingdom to work as maids. Pakistani and Indian maids in Saudi Arabia are uncommon.

“In light of these new regulations, recruitment from other nations, such as Ethiopia and Kenya, could work,,” said Ahmad, an employee at a recruitment office.

Change the sources of maids. That’s interesting, eh? But here’s the interesting thing. The basic problem of Saudi’s mistreating their maids has not gone away. So very soon there will be another incident and then these other countries will also not allow their women to go to Saudi Arabia to do maid jobs. Egypt is out, Philippines is out, Pakistani and Indians don't do maid jobs (why???). So pick up people from Ethiopia and Kenya? Given that racism is so heavy in Saudi, I wont be surprised that these girls from Ethiopia and Kenya get it worse. For some reason I cannot generate any sympathy towards these muppets. In the meantime, be prepared to pay through the nose matey.

Their views on women are like Neanderthal as well. See this story about how they blame rape victims. It was shocking. Divorce rates in Saudi Arabia are one of the highest in the world. 62% of marriages in the western region in Saudi end in divorce. Overall, its about 60%. Ok, i wont go off into tangents, but basically economic incentives are showing their predictable response. Mistreat your women and the women react by either divorcing you or raising their prices.