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The Government of Kuwait has taken a decision to stop issuing visas (Visa 20) to Ghanaians recruited as maidservants in Kuwaiti homes following increasing reports of abuse and maltreatment by Kuwaiti families.

The issuance of Visa 20 will only resume after Kuwait and Ghana sign a bilateral agreement that streamlines procedures for recruitment and outlines conditions of service to offer better protection to the maidservants.

Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Saeed Sinare disclosed this to The Finder in an interview.

Meanwhile, the deportation of 62 Ghanaian girls arrested in Kuwait for offences such as prostitution, organising parties without permit, as well as running away from the families they were serving as housemaids due to maltreatment commenced last Saturday.

Their ages range between 17 and 25 years, and they have been in Kuwait for between six and 15 months.

The girls are being deported in batches. Five of them arrived Saturday and another five arrived yesterday. Another batch is expected to arrive today.

Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Saeed Sinare, who rescued the girls from detention and negotiated for the government of Kuwait to pay for their tickets back to Ghana, told The Finder that all the 62 girls were working as housemaids in Kuwait.

Last year, Alhaji Sinare rescued 32 Ghanaian girls from similar circumstances.

In the case of the 62, he stated that about 17 of the rescued girls were in prison while the rest were camped in a shelter where they were well taken care of.

He said investigations revealed that all the arrested girls were illegally recruited since they did not go through any of the 22 firms legally registered to recruit Ghanaians abroad to work in countries like Kuwait.

He regretted that when the girls encountered challenges and called on their recruiters, they abandoned them.

 Alhaji Sinare bought the return ticket for only one of the girls and was grateful to the Government of Kuwait for buying return tickets for the remaining 61 girls to come back home.  

He further said that it's a shame to see people contact illegal agencies for jobs, only to end up being abused.

He said families in Kuwait pay as much as $2,000 per person to agents to recruit people for them.

Ban on maidservants recruitment

Alhaji Sinare explained that Visa 20 is issued to maidservants to work in Kuwaiti homes.

According to him, the temporary halt is to enable Kuwait and Ghana streamline procedures to offer better protection to the recruits.

According to him, Kuwait and Ghana would put in place a bilateral agreement on recruitment before lifting the ban on recruitment of housemaids.

He explained that one key function of the proposed bilateral agreement is that it would spell out the condition of service for the recruited maidservants.

Ambassador Sinare added that the bilateral agreement would also ensure that illegal recruitment agencies and families who employ the services of such agents are held responsible for any infractions, and not the unsuspecting housemaid.