Bangladeshi Women Get Lowest Wage in Oman: Study

Bangladeshi women domestic workers receive the lowest wage in Oman, according to a study.

It has shown that Filipino women call the highest rate of pay elsewhere in the gulf region.

The minimum monthly wage is 160 Omani Rial (OMR), compared to 120 OMR for Indian and Sri Lankan maids and 90 OMR for Bangladeshi maids, reports media.

The findings of the study titled 'The Invisible Workers: Bangladeshi Women in Oman' were unveiled at a webinar on Monday.

The research was conducted during the period between February and March 2020 under 'Work in Freedom', an ILO-DFID project.

Thirty-five women migrant workers from Bangladesh were interviewed. Eleven types of occupations have been reported, including 13 live-in and 11 live-out domestic workers, two cleaners, and a medical doctor.

Oman has the particularity, like most countries in the Middle East, of setting wages according to the ethnicity of its foreign employees and not according to individual qualifications.

Nationalities are thus typified and workers' earnings bracketed. Some governments have been more efficient than others in promoting their nationals and demanding corresponding salaries such as the Philippines, but Bangladesh is known to have often lagged behind in this respect.

Two years ago, Bangladesh and Omani governments concluded an agreement, fixing the minimum monthly salary for Bangladeshi workers at 90 OMR, the same level adopted for women and men.

Referring to the Bangladesh ambassador in Oman, the study said the Omani government had pressed for a lower rate, but Bangladesh fought for this level.

Several maids also did not get minimum salary. Two women reported being paid 70 OMR and quite a few received 80 and 85 OMR.

Following the bilateral agreement signed in 2015 between Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, which fixed domestic workers' monthly salary at 1,000 Rial, income generally increased for women domestic workers throughout the Middle East.

A wide application of the new regulations, noticeable from 2017, attracted women workers to Saudi Arabia and exerted pressure on Omani employers to augment salaries.

The study also showed that the agency fee for a Filipino maid ranged from 1,335 to 1,550 OMR compared with 1,200 OMR for an Indian or a Sri Lankan and 800 OMR for a Bangladeshi maid. These fees are exclusive of aqama (work permit) costing the employer 200 OMR.

The cost disparities between Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi maids were clarified by the fact that, for the former, the employer paid for the Sri Lankan government's compulsory health insurance, while for the employers of Bangladeshi maids, health insurance was left to the employer's discretion, meaning that they were not insured.

"We have seen Bangladeshi maids paying for health care from their own pocket unless fortunate enough to have kind and generous employers," a situation confirmed by the Bangladeshi doctors working in Salalah.

Women presently make up about 10 per cent of the Bangladeshi migrant population in Oman.

Bangladesh embassy officials in Muscat have estimated the number of Bangladeshis presently living in Oman at 750,000 including undocumented workers.

Thérèse Blanchet, social anthropologist and the researcher of the study, presented the key findings at the programme where Dr Atiur Rahman, former governor of Bangladesh Bank, and academicians were also present.