KUWAIT CITY, April 8: The former head of Kuwait Society for Maids (domestic help) Recruiting Offices Abdulaziz Al-Ali says the offices are innocent of ‘trafficking in humans’.

He said the role of the offices is limited to recruiting domestic helpers from their respective countries and the fact that there is no single evidence that the offices are involved in any kind of human trafficking in itself is a plus point.

Al-Ali called upon the authorities to enact a law to regulate the process of transfer of residence for the maids from one sponsor to another because the current law is viewed suspiciously and is being interpreted as a kind of human trafficking. He emphasized the offices would be the first to implement such laws.

Al-Ali indicated the offices are facing lot of problems due to lack of concrete mechanism while transferring maids from one sponsor to another.

He also touched on the issue of high cost of recruiting maids which he said was due to various factors, one of them is some countries refuse to send maids to Kuwait.

Those countries have set conditions which demand the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government through the Foreign Ministry to protect and preserve the rights of the maids.

He called upon the government represented by officials of the both Ministry of Interior and Foreign Affairs to expedite signing of the MoU with countries like Indonesia, which earlier provided between 45 and 50 percent of the maids in the country.

Al-Ali suggested that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor must build shelters for maids who run away from their sponsors for whatever reason, instead of sending them to their embassies where their cases are not easily determined.