Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has warned its citizens against travel to Tanzania and Burundi to recruit domestic workers unless all legal measures have been completed and an official recruitment office has been opened.
With the possible exception of Rwanda, the issue of maids suffering at the hands of their employers in the Middle East is a contentious barb between almost all East African countries and the Arab world and mid last year then Uganda Gender and Labour Minister Wilson Mukasa Muruli issued a statement suspending the travel of maids to the ME for employment.
And, in a statement, Mohammed Al-Marool, the director general at the ministry’s Department of Public Relations and Media, said the ministry had been informed by the Foreign Ministry that the authorities in Tanzania and Burundi were investigating some Saudi citizens, accused of human trafficking, illegally recruiting domestic workers and working without a government permit.
“The Interior Ministry urges all citizens to keep themselves abreast of the laws and regulations in other countries,” said the statement.
