ABU DHABI // Domestic staff make up six per cent of the population of Abu Dhabi, a Ministry of Interior official said at a General Women’s Union seminar.
Col Khalifa Mattar, director of the Department of Residency and Foreigners’ Affairs at the Ministry of Interior, said 23 per cent of Emirati families employ more domestic staff than they have family members.
There are 268,000 domestic workers in the UAE, representing five per cent of the population, and requests to fly in domestic workers increased by 30 per cent before Ramadan.
Col Mattar said domestic staff have rights, but they also “must not infringe the laws of the country”.
He added that “working for someone other than the sponsor is punishable with one to three months imprisonment and/or a fine, followed by deportation”.
Noura Al Suweidi, director of the General Women’s Union, said: “Emirati women managed to achieve considerable progress in the labour market in very little time and women are struggling to reconcile all their functions.”
The seminar, titled Between Liability and Negligence, was staged to launch an awareness campaign in the light of serious problems and crimes that have recently occurred involving domestic workers.
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