KUWAIT: Housemaids from Indonesia continue to arrive in Kuwait despite Jakarta's ban on their coming to the Gulf country to work. Aris Triyano, the spokesman for the Indonesian Ambassador to Kuwait Faisal Ismael , admitted that the embassy cannot do anything to stop the women coming or to implement the unilateral ban on housemaids coming to Kuwait so long as they enter the country using valid visas.

We informed the Kuwaiti government regarding the entry of Indonesian housemaids, but they told us they cannot prevent anybody who possesses valid, legal documents from entering Kuwait," he said. Triyano admitted that new recruits are hired using visit visas or sometimes using other ports of entry such as Bahrain or Dubai to enter Kuwait.

We really don't know how they are able to get permission to enter Kuwait," he said. "But as far as the embassy of Indonesia is concerned we are not signing any job orders as yet and the ban is still in place.

The Indonesian Labor Ministry temporarily suspended the deployment of Indonesian housemaids to Kuwait in mid-September of last year due to increasing unresolved issues of mistreatment and abuse of their maids.

The number of runaway domestic helpers reached over 600 during that period, falling significantly since the temporary ban, but the Jakarta government has stopped short of resuming the deployment of maids to Kuwait until a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is signed between the two countries.

There are issues to be settled, especially on how to protect our workers, before resuming deployment," said Triyano. "We are not blaming the host government or the sponsors since we are also partly to be blamed. We share responsibility for our workers because I think one of the reasons they are running away is because they cannot understand their jobs well.

He continued, "Remember that most of the maids who are entering Kuwait are from the remote provinces of Indonesia. They are not properly trained and so we need to train them before they can be allowed to work again in Kuwait, probably with intensive training to understand Kuwaiti culture and maybe to understand Arabic and English would be a great help," he said.

Triyano said that the Indonesian government has been doing all it can to prevent the illegal deployment of Indonesian housemaids in Kuwait until the new MoU is signed.

The good news is that both parties (Kuwait and Jakarta) have already expressed willingness to sign a new agreement. Of course both have to discuss their countries' concerns," he said.

Meanwhile, local recruitment agencies in Kuwait denied hiring any Indonesian housemaids and argued that agencies could not easily recruit Indonesians nowadays, especially after Jakarta imposed the ban.

They are very strict concerning the ban issue back in Jakarta," said an Indonesian secretary of one local recruitment agency asked about the issue. "Yes, there are some Indonesians that can penetrate Kuwait through other way - but we don't know how." There are currently around 80,000 Indonesians in Kuwait, of whom approximately 60,000 are engaged in domestic labor. - Kuwait Times