KL lifts freeze on foreign maids

KL lifts freeze on foreign maids

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia has been forced to lift its
recently imposed freeze on the intake of foreign maids due to the
high demand for domestic helpers, reports said yesterday.

"We will allow employers to recruit maids from Indonesia,
Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines," deputy Home Minister
Tajol Rosli Ghazali was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times
news paper.

"We have to lift the ban because we have received many appeals
from working mothers on the difficulties they have to endure if
the freeze remained," he said.

Kuala Lumpur decided last month to freeze the recruitment of
all unskilled foreign labor which now accounts for 1.7 million
people, or 8.3 percent, of its population. The measure was to
back Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's warning that a high
dependence on foreign workers could threaten the economy.