The phenomenon of domestic workers absconding in Jordan does not have a single cause. Economic, legal, and social factors all play a role, beginning with working conditions, wages, and recruitment mechanisms, and extending to the kafala sponsorship system, the difficulty of changing employers, and unlicensed brokers and networks that exploit some workers' desire for higher pay.
اضافة اعلان
While the domestic worker recruitment office sector puts the rate of absconding at no more than one to two percent, specialists say addressing the phenomenon cannot be limited to stricter monitoring and penalties. They argue it requires broader reform of the domestic work system - one that protects the rights of both workers and employers, provides safe channels for complaints and dispute resolution, and curbs the informal labour market.
Layla al-Khatib, a housewife and mother of two living in the Sweifieh area of Amman, described how a Nepalese domestic worker left her home without notice, taking her passport with her. Al-Khatib said the incident came as a surprise, given that she had been careful to treat the worker well.
Al-Khatib said she immediately notified the recruitment office and filed a complaint with the Ministry of Labour. The ministry then contacted the relevant embassy to follow up, and the worker was eventually located. Arrangements were made to return her to al-Khatib's home, but al-Khatib said she refused to take the worker back after what had happened.
According to al-Khatib, the worker explained after being found that a friend had persuaded her to leave and work at a salon in west Amman for a higher salary than she was receiving from the family. Al-Khatib said the worker had been in regular contact with a circle of friends, which led her to question what role such networks play in encouraging workers to leave their employers and move to other jobs.
In a previously issued statement, the Ministry of Labour announced that it had stopped four buses on the airport road carrying around 200 domestic workers, and found that 56 of them had absconding reports or other cases filed against them. The ministry said the operation followed information about the workers gathering to travel outside the capital. Those with reports filed against them were placed in security detention centres.
The ministry said its plan for handling absconding workers includes inspecting their places of residence, pursuing those who assist their escape or employ them in violation of labour and residency laws, and monitoring social media platforms used to promote such practices. It warned citizens against employing or dealing with absconding workers and urged the public to report illegal employment of foreign domestic labour.
Tariq al-Nawati, head of the Domestic Worker Recruitment Offices Syndicate, said absconding is not linked to a single cause but to multiple factors, some related to the worker herself and others to the employer and working conditions.
Al-Nawati said some workers are deceived by individuals, brokers, or fellow workers of the same nationality who have previously absconded and are working outside the law. He said some of these individuals contact workers through social media and tempt them to leave by promising higher pay and greater freedom. Some absconding workers go on to work in restaurants or other locations illegally, he added, with some being told their wages outside the home will be double what they currently earn.
Al-Nawati said absconding does not necessarily happen in the first months after a worker arrives. It can occur after one year, a year and a half, two years, or even four years of working for the same employer.
He said some workers leave and go to a recruitment office, a security centre, or their country's embassy to file complaints about unpaid monthly wages or accumulated salary arrears. Offices receive complaints from workers who have not been paid for periods of up to a year, a year and a half, or two years, as well as complaints about mistreatment, he said.
Al-Nawati added that lawsuits are also filed against workers, including theft cases. He said the syndicate considers many such cases to be vindictive, particularly when there is no evidence of theft but the employer owes the worker outstanding payments. He noted instances in which theft cases were brought against workers long after they had left - in some cases one, two, or three years into their employment.
He said the absconding rate is not as high as social media suggests, estimating it at between one and two percent - a figure that has remained stable for years. He added that no single nationality records a higher absconding rate than others, but that nationalities recruited in larger numbers naturally account for more cases in absolute terms.
Al-Nawati explained that a recruitment office's guarantee period extends for 90 days from the worker's entry into Jordan. If a worker absconds within that period, the office is required to provide a replacement at no additional cost to the employer.
The Ministry of Labour recorded 1,212 domestic worker absconding cases from the beginning of 2026, compared with 1,394 cases during 2025, at an average of approximately 116 cases per month. Afat al-Nu'aymat, director of the ministry's Domestic Workers Directorate, said the ministry has begun examining why workers leave their places of employment without notifying their employers, and that labour inspectors have detained a number of absconding workers during inspections of residential areas.
Linda Kalash, director of Tamkeen for Aid and Legal Assistance, said the phenomenon cannot be explained by a single factor and should not be treated solely as a violation on the part of the worker. She said it results from an interplay of factors related to working conditions, recruitment mechanisms, and legal and social protection.
Kalash said the nature of domestic work itself is a key factor: it takes place in a private space that is difficult to monitor, which can leave some workers exposed to long working hours, denial of rest periods and leave, delayed or unpaid wages, restricted movement and communication, and possible verbal, physical, or psychological abuse.
She said the high cost of recruitment can place a worker in a financially precarious position from the outset, particularly when she has taken on debts or financial obligations in her home country in exchange for the job opportunity in Jordan. Any gap between what she was told before arriving and what she actually finds- in terms of wages, duties, or hours- can become a serious crisis, Kalash said.
She added that the phenomenon cannot be separated from recruitment and contracting mechanisms. In some cases, a worker may not receive clear and complete information before arrival about the nature of the work, its conditions, and her rights, or the actual conditions may differ from what was agreed.
Kalash said the worker's dependence on the employer or intermediary parties for certain residency and legal-status procedures increases her vulnerability and limits her ability to access safe alternatives when a violation occurs.
She said that addressing the phenomenon must begin with preventing violations before they happen, not only with dealing with workers after they have left. The clearer the work conditions, the more reliably wages are paid, the better-defined working and rest hours are, and the more effective and safe complaint mechanisms are, the less likely employment relationships are to deteriorate to the point of absconding.
Kalash said tightening monitoring and penalties alone will not resolve the problem, because punishment addresses the result rather than the reasons that drove a worker to leave. What is required, she said, is a shift from an approach focused on detaining workers after they abscond to a comprehensive approach built on prevention, protection, and access to justice.
She listed guaranteed and enforceable decent working conditions as the first priority, including full and timely wage payment, regulated working and rest hours, a guaranteed right to retain personal documents and communicate with family, and a ban on all forms of violence, exploitation, or forced labour.
The second priority, she said, is reforming the recruitment system through greater transparency in contracts and fees, ensuring workers know their duties, wages, hours, and rights before leaving their home country, and ensuring accountability for brokers and employers where there is deception, exploitation, or breach of agreed terms.
Kalash said an independent, prompt, and safe complaint mechanism is among the most important reforms needed. A worker who faces a violation, she said, must be able to seek help without the act of filing a complaint itself becoming grounds for loss of residency, detention, or deportation. Multiple channels for complaints and legal assistance must be available, with translation and appropriate support, she added.
She also called for strengthened inspection and monitoring of domestic work in a manner that respects the privacy of the home, without allowing that privacy to become a gap that prevents violations from being discovered. Monitoring, she said, should be risk-based and operate through clear mechanisms for intervention when there are indicators of exploitation or abuse. Employers and brokers must also be held accountable for violations, she said, because protecting workers' rights cannot be achieved if legal responsibility falls in practice on the worker alone.
Kalash concluded that the reform needed is not a choice between punishment and improved working conditions, but the construction of a system in which prevention, protection, and accountability are integrated-through more transparent recruitment, clear contracts, decent wages and working conditions, effective monitoring, safe complaint channels, legal assistance, and genuine accountability for violations. Knowing that a safe and legal way out of an abusive employment relationship exists, she said, makes informal departure less likely and makes protection more effective than tightening penalties.
Ahmad Awad, director of the Phoenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies, said the problem of domestic workers leaving their employers in Jordan cannot be addressed through stricter monitoring and penalties alone, because a significant part of the problem lies in the kafala system itself. That system ties a worker's legal status to a specific employer and makes changing employers a complex process, even when the employment relationship has become untenable.
Awad said reforming the kafala system has become a necessity for regulating the domestic work sector and protecting the rights of all parties. What is needed, he said, is a move to a model that allows a worker to transfer legally to another employer in the same sector through clear, time-bound procedures that do not depend entirely on the current employer's consent, while ensuring that the financial and contractual rights and obligations of both parties are settled.
He said the live-in requirement-under which workers reside in the employer's home - also needs more precise review and regulation. Combining the workplace with the place of residence frequently blurs the boundary between working and rest hours and limits privacy and freedom of movement, particularly given the difficulty of monitoring working conditions inside private homes.
Awad stressed that this does not mean all cases of workers leaving are the result of violations. Some workers move to informal work in search of higher wages, and some unlicensed networks and brokers encourage workers to leave their employers and work illegally. These practices require strict oversight and clear accountability, he said.
He said the required reform must combine kafala system reform towards a contractual relationship in which both parties have balanced rights and obligations; facilitate legal transfers between employers; improve working conditions and wages; strengthen complaint and dispute-resolution mechanisms; regulate live-in arrangements and work inside homes; and pursue unlicensed brokers.
The more flexible the work system becomes and the more capable it is of enforcing the rights of both workers and employers, Awad said, the more informal departures will decline and the smaller the parallel market that currently profits from existing gaps will become.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad.
