Dubai: Employing part-time cleaners without checking their legality could land unsuspecting households in trouble and indirectly help fuel human trafficking.
A Dubai resident, who refused to be identified, learned this lesson after finding out that the part-time cleaners, supplied to her by a cleaning company, had been hired in the country illegally.
Companies and individuals who employ workers without a valid employment visa in the UAE are violating the UAE Labour law, with a corresponding Dh50,000 fine. Illegal workers run the risk of being penalised, imprisoned, deported, and banned from entering the GCC.
“They come to my house to clean the place but I never suspected they were illegals as they had been supplied by a cleaning company,” the expatriate told Gulf News. “And when I found out that they had been employed illegally, I was told I also run the risk of being fined.”
The three Filipina workers had been working as part-time cleaners for more than one year with a Dubai-based company without valid employment visas. They sought help from authorities after they said they had had enough of their company manager’s promises of giving them employment visas. They are now being detained at the Al Aweer deportation jail. The case is under investigation.
Gulf News visited the women who claimed that their manager had promised them multiple times that their employment visa was already “being processed”.
“Every time we ask him, he would say it is being processed, we’ll get it next week,” N.C., one of the women, told Gulf News.
But the next week came, but no employment visa was issued. The women said the manager kept promising them good news but since their passports were with him, they felt helpless.
When contacted by Gulf News, Frank Cimafranca, Philippine Consul-General to Dubai, said: “I have already given instructions to the concerned department to check on their case. We will assist and make representations, if necessary, on behalf of our nationals.”
Cimfranca warned Filipinos against falling prey to companies that promise employment but don’t do it legally.
“We strongly advise our fellowmen not to work while on a tourist visa as that is a violation of the UAE labour law. They should wait until their employment visa has been processed and released, otherwise they’re inviting trouble,” Cimafranca said.
“Filipinos are very trusting and some of them start working after being promised that their visas are already ‘being processed’. But they should not compromise. They should not be afraid to say no, it’s not worth it,” he added.
The resident who had earlier hired the three part-time workers said she would now start checking documents of workers who work in her house to ensure her household’s safety and the safety of the workers.
“The moment you have them on your property, you assume responsibility for them. And should anything go wrong, or should they pose a security risk, it’s all on you. So we need to police ourselves and make sure we check their documents before letting them into our property,” the expatriate said.
“It just breaks my heart to know that they will never be able to help their families any more just because a person thought he could get away with it at the expense of the three women,” she added.
