Maids in the UAE, like their employers, deserve strong protection Andy Thompson

The law relating to absconding, that is, employees running away or leaving their work without permission from the employer, is a legislative condition that grew out of the historical trade of pearl diving in the Arabian Gulf.
Last week, I discovered a new low for unscrupulous employers to stoop to. That is, for an expatriate employer to falsely accuse someone of absconding, usually as a means of abdicating their legal responsibility for repatriating their own employee.While labour law has punitive measures for an employer who falsely reports a worker as absconding (a Dh10,000 fine against the company), there is, as yet, no such provision for people who work in the domestic sector – especially maids.
Recently, an expat employer took her maid to a police station and reported her for absconding.
The maid’s two-year visa had expired and rather than signing a letter of no objection permitting her maid to find further work or repatriating her as the minimal requirement for employers, she imposed a travel ban against her maid and reported her as absconding.
This is absurd for two reasons. One, the maid’s passport shows that she had completed her two-year residence and her employer was charging her as a runaway after she had officially finished her contract. Two, the maid was clearly not absent as her employer had taken the maid with her to the police station.
The maid is bewildered. She understands that her employer has every right to replace her, but this has come out of the blue. She wants to work again and provide for her family back in Sri Lanka.
Instead, upon completion of her service she finds herself facing prison, deportation and being placed on a blacklist, which prevents her from working again and providing for her family who depend on her income to survive.The employer, meanwhile, has recruited a new maid and ignores attempts from friends of the maid to persuade her to sign a police form that allows the maid to go home without the trauma of prison.
She has dodged the responsibility of flying the maid home and left that mess to policemen who have seen this only too many times before.
The police reluctantly advise the maid that if she cannot persuade her employer to sign a letter of release then she needs to hand herself into the deportation centre.
There she faces an incarceration – anything from three days up to three months depending on the workload and cash flow of the prison authorities.
While the culture of absconding is unlikely to change in the near future, I do think that employers who cynically exploit the system should face punitive measures.
As for the employer, at the very least she should be made to understand some of the trauma she has put her innocent maid through.
Fortunately for her, the maid cannot report her employer to the authorities, as she does not have the means to access the law.
The Reverend Canon Andy Thompson MBE is senior chaplain of St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Abu Dhabi and author of Christianity in the UAE and Jesus of Arabia

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