The ministry of labor announced in a statement yesterday that it has suspended the licenses of some 171 agencies recruiting migrant domestic workers for violating required regulations. The ministry has also deactivated the licenses of another 33 offices giving them one-month ultimatum to redress their conditions, the statement said. This leaves some 441 active legalized agencies out of a total of 700 recently operational ones. This step, the statement explained, comes after arduous work by a senior staff ministry committee which studied the cases of agencies on an individual basis. The labor ministry also advised households to deal only with legal offices, otherwise they shall be accountable for aiding violating recruiters. Furthermore, the ministry urged the families who have live-in migrant help to “respect their human, personal, social and financial rights and treat them fairly”. On the other hand, Al Mustaqbal newspaper reported yesterday the death of an Ethiopian domestic worker who threw herself from the ninth floor of her employer’s residence in the Shiya7h suburb of the capital. As per usual, security squads rushed to the scene for investigation. (Al Diyar, Al Mustaqbal, An Nahar, November 30, 2016)
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