Outsourcing agencies are mulling on a concept to waive service fees to provide jobs as housemaids to Nepali women in Gulf countries. The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies has developed a plan to start the service-fee-free drive soon. 

Gulf countries — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — have a custom whereby all the costs for hiring a housemaid is borne by the employer, so we will not take service charge from Nepali women, said president of the association Bal Bahadur Tamang. According to him, Nepali outsourcing agencies have been charging service fee on housemaids as they have to pay to recruiting agencies in the destinations. “We have built a framework to abolish the unnecessary fee,” he said, adding that consultations with outsourcing agencies is going on. Our association will implement service-fee-free provision at any cost, he promised. 

About 50 to 70 Nepali women have been joining foreign jobs every day and most of them as housemaids. According to the Department of Foreign Employment, about 58,000 women have joined foreign jobs since fiscal year 2007-08. The number of outbound women migrant workers was about 22,000 last year. 

However, Nepal Institute of Development Studies and UN Women have estimated about 244,000 Nepali women to be working in Gulf countries, with the highest number of 63,000 Nepali women in Saudi Arabia. Other destinations also had large populations of Nepali women migrant workers — Kuwait (25,000), Qatar (18,000), Oman (10,000) and UAE (7,000) — in 2011. 

Women migrants are paying around Rs 80,000 to join jobs in Gulf countries despite their employer bearing the cost of the air ticket, and visa and foreign job permit fees. “It is irrational to charge service fees when employers have already paid for it and we have united to do away with it,” said Tamang. “All outsourcing agencies will talk to their counterparts in Gulf countries and abolish it.” 

The Department of Foreign Employment has already streamlined the women migration process targeting housemaids. It has set separate criteria for housemaids in four major job markets — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait. 

The common criteria set for Gulf countries last November were crime-free history of employer, fixed working hours according to International Labour Organisation, and opportunities to contact family members in Nepal regularly. Besides these, the employer must deposit a guarantee that is equal to six months salary at the Nepali embassy in the destination and income certificate showing they can afford a housemaid.

Published on: 26 December 2012 | The Himalayan Times