Ethiopia Will No Longer Send Domestic Workers To The UAE

Surprising news on Wednesday

As a government official has announced the news about Ethiopian domestic workers in the UAE.

The Ethiopian government has officially stated that it will no longer be sending women as domestic workers to the UAE and to other GCC countries.

So far this decision is a temporary ban on domestic workers from Ethiopia and is a decision made by the Ethiopian government and has started last week.

All GCC countries will see a decrease in domestic workers from Ethiopia effective immediately with no specific date to the lift of this domestic worker ban.

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In efforts to safeguard the rights of Ethiopian women who are hired as domestic workers from GCC countries – the UAE is still attempting to negotiate an understanding agreement between the two countries to find a middle ground.

An official who has confirmed this news has stated that some reasons behind this decision were based on the problems that the domestic women had faced in several GCC nations, including non-payment, denied health care, abuse and more.

This ban, pushed on by the Ethiopian government, also aims to remove any abuse agencies and sponsors who bring the women to the GCC countries.

Ethiopian workers in UAE

Adding to his statement, the official added that more than 400 Ethiopian domestic workers arrive in the UAE every day and almost always land in trouble as soon as they do.

Saying that the trouble may stem from their sponsors, employers or their inability to work as “housemaids.”

Ethiopians in the UAE account for 100,000 people in the country’s population and a fairly large number of that is accounting for domestic workers only.

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As of December 11 onwards, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has applied the ban onto domestic centres in the UAE and are urging typing centres and employment offices to be aware of this until the ban is lifted.

Any entry permits applied for Ethiopian domestic workers will be a repercussion and the centres will be held accountable for their actions.

So far, all new applications for domestic workers from Ethiopia have been officially seized.

Not the first ban on domestic workers in the GCC

Back in January, the government of the Philippines issued a domestic worker ban on Filipino women entering GCC countries as domestic workers.

The ban focused mostly on Kuwait, as the Philippines’ government investigated the death of several Filipinos in the country.

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President Rodrigo Duterte was the man behind the official ban calling on GCC countries to allegedly have lots of abusive employers and are driving several domestic workers towards suicide and abuse.

The government of the Philippines released that more than 2.3 million Filipinos and Filipinas are working abroad – and in Kuwait alone, there are more than 250,000 Filipinas working as domestic workers in the country.

Other common destinations for domestic workers from the Philippines include the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.