Cairo: Kuwait has agreed to extend validity of entry visas for foreign domestic workers to six months, a unionist official has disclosed.
The Interior Ministry has approved a request to extend the entry visa duration for the domestic workers from three months to six and to print their residency permits in their passports if their validity is for 18 months instead of two years, Khalid Al Dakhnan, the head of Kuwait’s Union for Domestic Labour, added.
“Such matters facilitate the recruitment process for the offices that suffered a lot during the last year and incurred heavy losses as a result of halting recruitment and flights with the countries exporting these workers,” he told Al Jarida newspaper.
“I thank the Interior Ministry for its wide cooperation with the union,” he said.
Thousands of expatriates including domestic workers have been stranded due to travel restrictions that Kuwait has imposed in recent months due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this week, Kuwait said that passengers arriving from Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are barred from entering the country until further notice.
Late last month, Kuwaiti authorities banned all commercial flights with India until further notice, over a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases there.
The ban applies to passengers directly coming from India or through a third country unless they have stayed for at least 14 days outside India.
Last August, Kuwait announced a temporary ban on flights from dozens of “high-risk” countries, citing concerns over COVID-19 spread.
