150 Bangladeshi maids fled from Saudi jobs in 7 months

At least 150 Bangladeshi housemaids escaped from their employers in Saudi Arabia in the last seven months, a Makkah daily reported quoting a source of Bangladesh Embassy.

The source who was not identified said the housemaids were nabbed and deported, according to the Saudi Gazette.

He said the embassy registered three main reasons -- difficult house chores, homesickness and mistreatment by the employers -- behind the fleeing.

The source expected that more house helps will come from Bangladesh in the coming months but the employers who recruited the escapees would not obtain any financial compensation from the recruitment offices.

The source also said a total of 52,000 workers from Bangladesh arrived in the KSA in 2015 and were mostly working in various manual jobs.

Khaled Al-Saif, a recruitment expert, believes that Bangladesh is not in a position to meet the great demand for housemaids in the Kingdom.

Though Bangladesh had promised to send 500,000 house helps when the two countries signed a labour agreement, it sent only 15,000 housemaids including the 150 who escaped, he said.

Most of the workers came through recruitment companies not offices as Bangladesh prefers to deal with the companies because they recruit both male and female workers, Saif further said.

The cost of recruiting a housemaid from Bangladesh has increased from about SR 7,000 to SR 15,000, he added.