A thriving black market: the lucrative business of runaway maids

Several Saudi families who once promptly reported runaway maids have either stopped altogether or have even welcomed runaways into their homes, paying them by the hour thanks to the dire shortage of manpower that has afflicted the country.
Many blame authorities for this change in attitude, since residents say that officials leave runaway reports to pile up unresolved.
Other expats, meanwhile, have taken advantage of this dynamic.
Mahboob, a Bangladeshi expat, shelters runaways and then sends them onto other employers.
“I am a legal expat who works as a driver,” he said. “Many of the ladies I drive around are in need of maids, whom I then provide by the hour in collaboration with other maids of the same nationality. I charge a fee that we divide between us at the end of the month.”
Mahboob has sheltered 40 housemaids, who end up making as much as SR2,500 ($666 USD) a month instead of the usual SR1,500 ($400) offered to full-timers, guaranteeing him and his partners a decent profit margin at the end of the month.
Abdullah Al-Harbi, a Saudi taxi driver, said he sometimes finds himself cabbing runaways between various Jeddah neighborhoods.
“I realize from our chats that they are part of a much bigger network of maids, who agree among themselves to take on different neighborhoods and whether they will charge by the hour, day or month,” he said.
“I sometimes regret driving them, but I can never know for sure if they are runaways.”
Salah Abdulhadi, another taxi driver, demands that taxis be directly linked with authorities so that they can report runaways more efficiently.
Majid Al-Hamdan, a sociologist, said there are many reasons why housemaids run away. 
“Sometimes maids copy each other, while others suffer maltreatment. Others just want to work independently and get more money or do less work,” he added.