‘Employer hiring domestic worker from Philippines must have KD2,500 salary’

KUWAIT CITY, May 27: The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait has laid down conditions for endorsing contracts for the recruitment of Filipino domestic workers; including the condition that a foreign employer’s salary should not be less than KD 2,500 in order to protect the financial rights of the workers, reports Al- Jarida daily. The daily quoted owners of some recruitment offices as saying that after suspending the procedure for a long time, the embassy resumed the endorsement of contracts between the recruitment offices and prospective foreign employers residing in Kuwait.

Aside from the abovementioned salary ceiling, other conditions include the need for the Public Authority of Manpower (PAM) to issue a work permit in English and the owners of recruitment offices must sign a pledge to pay the worker’s salary in case the employer violates stipulations of the contract. Reliable sources said the embassy wants to set clear-cut rules for Kuwaitis and expatriates who hire Filipino domestic workers to prevent the repetition of problems that domestic workers faced in previous years; mainly those related to financial entitlements like salaries. The embassy has yet to comment on this. In January 2020, the Philippines imposed a ban on sending new domestic workers to Kuwait after a Filipino domestic worker was sexually abused and killed by her employer.

Recruitment
Meanwhile, Head of the Union of Domestic Labor Recruitment Agencies Khaled Al-Dakhnan revealed that the date for signing the Kuwaiti- Ethiopian Memorandum of Understanding for the recruitment of domestic workers is imminent, reports Al-Anba daily. In an exclusive statement issued on the sidelines of his meeting with the Ethiopian ambassador to Kuwait earlier this week, Al-Dakhnan explained that the Ethiopian government will either assign a delegation to visit Kuwait and sign the memorandum or assign the ambassador himself to sign the memorandum.

The two sides agree on all the terms in the memorandum without any significant modifications related to the unified contract in force in Kuwait. He stressed the keenness of the union and its board of directors over the past years to complete the memorandum, highlighting the many visits made by the union prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the readiness of domestic workers and their training to adapt to the Kuwaiti society. Al-Dakhnan indicated that the recruitment of Ethiopian workers will contribute greatly to diversifying the sources of recruitment and reviving the domestic labor sector, which has been suffering for years due to successive crises, and that it will also reduce the cost for the recruitment of domestic workers. He affirmed that the Ethiopian domestic workers undergo training at good training centers provided by the government there to teach them the basics of Arabic language, and how to deal with Arab societies, customs and traditions.