Housemaids rush to meet amnesty deadline

Dubai: Absconding housemaids are flooding recruitment agencies to take advantage of the amnesty, return their passports and go back home, agents said.

Some come back to the agencies to try and transfer their sponsorship.

The authorities have started the countdown to the end of the amnesty which ends in three weeks. The Interior Ministry is now urging the public through billboards installed on the side of the roads, to cooperate with the authorities and inform them about any illegal residents.

Brigadier Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, Director General of the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department, had earlier said that around 70, 000 illegal workers hade obtained outpasses and 45,000 have got their residency status legalised.

Working hours

Many absconding housemaids now are rushing to take advantage of the amnesty and recruitment agencies are saying they are receiving large numbers of absconding housemaids.

"I cannot do any work now. We are spending our working hours responding to absconded housemaids. Some of them have been here for more than six or seven years working illegally," said Wafa who runs Qurtoba recruitment agency in Ajman.

She wondered where they have been all these years and how they managed to hide from the authorities. Manal who works at Al Dawli recruitment agency in Sharjah, said most of the absconding housemaids are Ethiopian, Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi.

"They are coming now to us. They ran away from their sponsors and vanished years ago and could not be traced. They are coming now to ask for their passports. Their passports have been handed over to their embassies and consulates," she said.

Muna who works at the same agency, said her mobile phone keeps ringing with calls. "In the first two months of the amnesty we did not see or hear from them [absconding housemaids], but now a large number of them are coming to us," she said.

Farhan, a government employee, said their housemaid had absconded since 2000 and now she has called them asking for her passport back, saying she wishes to work legally elsewhere.

A well-dressed young Ethiopian housemaid also came to the recruitment agency accompanied by a man, a compatriot, asking for her passport.