Jeddah, Sep 18(Arab News): The Labor Ministry will facilitate the recruitment of house servants from Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Sudan and other countries instead of Indonesia and the Philippines, said Deputy Labor Minister Mufrej Al-Haqabani on Saturday.

“We’ll approve applications to recruit house servants from these countries,” he said, adding that the new move was taken because of the difficult conditions set by Indonesia and the Philippines for the recruitment of such workers.

“We will not accept the conditions set by the Philippines and Indonesia to recruit house servants to the Kingdom,” Al-Haqabani said, adding that the measure was taken to protect the interests and rights of citizens.

“We’ll facilitate the arrival of new house servants in coordination with the National Recruitment Committee,” the deputy minister said.

He said the ministry has been working on measures to ensure the rights of employers, workers and recruitment offices. These include the issuance of a recruitment company law, introduction of an insurance policy and follow up of recruitment procedures.

Meanwhile, informed sources at the National Recruitment Committee said current problems in the recruitment of housemaids and drivers would be solved within a few months after agreements were reached with Yemen and a number of African countries.

“The first batches of these new workers will reach the Kingdom shortly,” one source said, adding that the number of maids and drivers to be recruited from these countries would exceed 200,000.

At present there are more than a million house servants in the Kingdom, with Indonesians and Filipinos accounting for 70 percent of the total.