Kuwait City: On Sunday, the Deputy Director of the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) met with the Director General of the Federation of Domestic Workers’ recruitment Agencies to discuss the terms and details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the recruitment of Ethiopian domestic workers.
Khaled Al Dakhan, head of the Federation, stated that PAM is working on finalizing the MoU, which will be sent back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs next week so they can complete all the necessary steps to move forward.
A previous MoU was sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but has amended to ensure that all parities (domestic workers, agencies in Kuwait and their counterpart in Ethiopia) involved are protected.
Based on statistics from last year, there are around 18,000 Ethiopian, mainly women, working as domestic workers in Kuwait.
Shortage of domestic workers
Due to several factors, from the travel ban on India to the ban on recruiting new domestic workers from the Philippines, Kuwait has witnessed a shortage in domestic workers in the last year, as the two countries deploy the largest amount of domestic workers to Kuwait.
Over a year ago, the Philippines imposed a ban on deploying new domestic workers to Kuwait after a Filipino domestic worker, Jeanelyn Villavende, was sexually abused and killed by her employer.
But then last week, the Filipino labour attaché, Nasser Mustafa, issued a circular announcing that the ban has been lifted.
As for domestic workers from India, many remain outside of Kuwait for over a year due to travel restrictions and travel bans imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most recently, Kuwait announced on Friday that it would suspend all flights between Kuwait and India until further notice due to the rise in COVID-19 cases.
Domestic workers were previously allowed into Kuwait, but the decision was halted on Friday as the travel ban is imposed on all passengers arriving from India.
