Recruiters’ syndicate urges stricter monitoring of domestic helpers

AMMAN — Tareq Nooti, acting president of the Domestic Helpers Recruitment Agencies Association (DHRAA), said on Sunday that some domestic helpers have absconded from their employers in  hotels and factories which failed to check the validity of their documents, or whether or not they were wanted by the authorities. 

Nooti said that “networks and unlicensed offices” help some domestic workers “secretly leave one job”, and provide them with illegal work instead. 

He noted that the DHRAA has more than once called on the authorities and the Lower House to amend the syndicate’s law and increase penalties for violations. 

Nooti warned the public not to respond to advertisements which offer domestic services on a daily- or weekly-pay basis, and urged authorities to regulate the publication of such ads to ensure that the worker’s legal status is checked before advertising.

Domestic helpers constitute 64.6 per cent of all 76,473 female guest workers in Jordan, according to a Sisterhood Is Global (SIGI) statement released late last year.

Citing Department of Statistics figures from 2015, the institute said there are 49,470 domestic helpers in Jordan, most of whom work in Amman, Irbid, Balqa and Zarqa.

Female guest workers employed in manufacturing industries number 24,670. Of these workers, 4,830 are Sri Lankans.

The largest number of domestic helpers in Jordan are from the Philippines (15,636), followed by Sri Lankans (3,742) and then Indonesians (1,233).

But SIGI said these figures do not reflect the actual number of domestic helpers in Jordan, noting that many are not registered at the Labour Ministry and its directorates around the Kingdom.