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Filipino ‘Maid for Rent’ Racket Rampant in Middle East

By on July 18, 2012

A migrants workers’ rights group on Tuesday bared that the “maid for rent” racket is now prevalent in the Middle East.

Migrante-Middle East is now calling on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and Philippine Overseas Labor offices in the Middle East to probe the “maid for rent” racket by the employers of Filipino maids.

The group’s regional coordinator Leonard Monterona said that many of the “maid for rent” victims are runaway overseas Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia. He said that the OFWs were forced to work to other households through brokers.

“It is now becoming rampant that it even created a market of ‘maid for rent’ that is not only illegal but also dehumanizes migrant household service workers,” Monterona said.

Monterona said that under abusive and restrictive working conditions, an OFW household service worker is forced to run away from her original employer or sponsor where she is to work contractually.

“The OFW reports and seeks the assistance of the Philippine-based recruitment agency’s counterpart foreign recruitment agency who will offer her to be transferred to another employer, if negotiations with the original sponsor-employer failed,” he added.

Under labor laws of Gulf Cooperating Council-member countries, Monterona noted that a maid has to exclusively work for her sponsor, who is responsible for her legal and financial status during her stay in the host country.

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