Domestic workers form 5% of UAE's population

Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Al Saeedi has four housemaids, one for each of his children. He says the housemaids have become such an integral part of the upbringing of his children, "one of my children speaks Tagalog while the other speaks Amharic (Ethiopian language)."

As alarming as these numbers may be, this is not an isolated incident; it is in fact a common trend. Five per cent of the population of the UAE are domestic workers, according to a new study by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"I can't tell you if it's good or bad to have these many maids, but I can tell you that it has become such a necessity that it would be hard to find an Emirati family without a housemaid," Al Saeedi says.

Abu Dhabi has the highest number of domestic workers of the UAE. Of the 268,000 domestic workers in the country, Abu Dhabi has 120,000 (six per cent of the population of Abu Dhabi).

Al Saeedi affirms the study's findings by saying, "I know countless families who have more maids than there are people in the house."

The demand for domestic workers has become so high that in 2007 alone, 83,600 visas were issued for domestic workers in the nation. A number that almost doubles that of Saudi Arabia, a nation perceived to have the largest amount of domestic workers.

The study also found that Indonesians and Filipinos constitute 80 per cent of the total domestic workers in the UAE. Three billion dollars was the average annual spending on domestic workers.

But 26-year-old Mohammad Al Ganabi says this idea has to change. "It is actually not healthy to the structure of the family to have these many housemaids. It lessens the relationship the children have with the parents," he said. - Marten Youssef, Gulfnews.com, 12/03/2007 01:56 AM