Saudis flaunt maids as status symbols -minister

RIYADH, Aug 6 (Reuters) A Saudi minister has said he finds it revolting to see spoilt children waited on hand and foot by Asian maids, whose main role is often that of status symbol.

Labour Minister Ghazi Algosaibi said the kingdom had become too dependent on foreign maids, mainly from Asia, but did not say if entry visas for them would be curbed.

''In this society, the healthy teenager needs a maid to bring him a glass of water that is exactly 10 metres away.

This is yet another revolting sight!'' Algosaibi said in an interview published in al-Eqtisadiah newspaper yesterday.

''It really causes me a great deal of depression,'' he said.

''You hear in this society the little girl talking about 'her Filipina' or 'her Indonesian' (maid), and this girl is barely four years old.'' Saudi Arabia is home to about 24 million people, some 7 million of them expatriates occupying mainly blue-collar jobs.

A decade-old drive of ''Saudisation'', intended to replace them with Saudi workers, has had little impact.

Algosaibi, seen as a liberal, gave no figures for maids working in the world's biggest oil exporter.

Asian diplomats and international rights groups have often highlighted cases of ill-treatment of maids and other foreign labourers in the kingdom and such cases are common in Saudi media.

''While we know that some house workers are necessary, we are also aware that a significant number of them are brought for social prestige,'' the minister said.

With unemployment a growing problem in the vast desert kingdom, officials say job visas are granted only for posts Saudis do not occupy -- but the government has even spoken of plans to bring in more Asian labour to fuel its industrial expansion, using surging income from record-high oil prices.

Algosaibi said Saudi Arabia was now a society ''dizzy from the boom'' but that he was not intending to try to change its ''consumerist and lavish habits''.

REUTERS AKJ VC0858