Beware of domestic labour fraud, Saudi Arabia warns
Fake websites seek to defraud potential customers amid surge in demand for maids
Cairo: Saudi Arabia’s labour authorities have warned of online fraud related to domestic labour services as demand surges for such workers during Ramadan.
The Musaned platform, responsible for regulating domestic labour in the kingdom, said there are fake websites, exploiting its identity and name to offer bogus services of house labour services and defraud potential customers seeking recruitment.
Fake offers are also made via WhatsApp messages for fraudulent purposes, warned the platform affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Human resources.
The platform has called on people to exercise vigilance and caution, and avoid dealing with untrustworthy persons and dubious websites, saying that all recruitment operations are conducted via Musaned’s link: http://Musaned.com.sa.
Saudi labour authorities have recently sought to regulate the domestic labour market.
To this end, the Musaned has been launched to help customers learn about their rights and duties, and related services including visa issuance, recruitment requests and contractual relation between the employer and the worker.
The Musaned also helps regulate and automate the recruitment process starting from giving the customer access to all recruitment offices in the kingdom and picking the most suitable, depending on a host of factors including prices, and previous clients’ feedbacks without the need to visit each of them.
The Ministry of Human Resources has also set maximum cost limits for hiring overseas domestic workers from different countries.
They are set at SR9,500 per worker from Uganda, SR10,000 from Thailand, SR10,870 from Kenya, SR13,000 from Bangladesh, SR15,000 from Sri Lanka, SR17,288 from the Philippines, SR7,500 from Burundi, and SR6,900 from Ethiopia, exclusive VAT.
The ministry has said it is necessary to conduct contracting via the Musaned, being the official recruitment platform.