RIYADH, 24 August 2005 — The Kingdom determines wages for housemaids by their experience and not by their nationality, a senior official of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry said, refuting allegations of discrimination in fixing their salaries.

Waleed Al-Swaidan, chairman of the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee, told Arab News that the wages of female domestic helps are fixed by their proven capabilities and not by any other criteria.

The Kingdom employs over a million maids, and some 25,000 new ones arrive monthly for employment in Saudi households.

“Saudi families believe that maids who know the local language, culture and customs could easily adapt themselves to their new environment,” Swaidan said, emphasizing that the maids who have these skills could be paid more. He added that in future the Kingdom will depend only on Asian countries for housemaids. “Maids recruited earlier from other countries did not meet the requirements of Saudi families,” he noted.

Swaidan pointed out that Filipino and Indonesian maids are fully trained in their own countries before they are deployed to the Kingdom, whereas those from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh generally fall short of the employers’ expectations. “However, there are several Lankan housemaids getting salaries of more than SR900 per month since they are skilled and have proved their worth,” Swaidan said citing this as an example of fair play in determining salaries.

Maids from the Philippines get a monthly salary of SR600 to SR900 and Indonesians receive SR600, but Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi maids are paid SR400.

Swaidan described media reports regarding an alleged ban on recruitment of housemaids from some countries as misleading.

“Each country has a quota in terms of manpower recruitment. The recruitment will be suspended for some time when the quota is completed and it will be resumed as the system returns to normalcy,” he said. He pointed out that Sri Lanka is currently undergoing such a suspension.

Sri Lankan Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment Athauda Seneviratne said Monday in Colombo that his government has decided not to permit females going abroad for employment as housemaids for anything less than SR700 a month. The minister will take up the issue at the annual meeting of labor exporting countries in Jakarta on Sept. 20.

A Bangladeshi diplomat here said his country has been asking for enhanced wages for its maids but has not received any positive response from the Saudi authorities.