PETALING JAYA: Foreign workers, including domestic maids, from 10 countries are now required to undergo a mandatory induction course and obtain the Certificate of Eligibility (CE) before applying for visas to work in Malaysia.

The new ruling issued by the Human Resources Ministry and Immigration Department has been implemented from May 1.

Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies president Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, who issued a statement on the ruling, said that it would only encourage domestic maids to enter the country illegally.

He also said that the new ruling would increase the cost of hiring maids and that would eventually be borne by employers and agencies.

“Foreign maids will also incur additional financial burden,” he said.

Citing an example, Raja Zulkepley said employers hiring Indonesian maids would have to pay RM120 to enable a maid to undergo the induction course to acquire the CE.

“This cost does not include incidental expenses that may be borne by the agencies in both countries,” he said.

Domestic maids should be exempted from attending the course as the nature of their work was “informal” and they are not exposed to serious problems like other workers in the “formal” sector.

Raja Zulkepley said those from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka would face difficulty in obtaining CEs as these countries do not have training centres for domestic maids.

The new ruling, he said, might cause employers to face problems getting maids from agencies within the next one to three months, as the agents were not ready to fulfil the new requirement.

- The Star