Ladies need to exit country for employment visa!

Looks like this is bad news for the ladies who have been on husband’s or father’s sponsorship. As per the new rules, ladies who are on relatives visa, if they want to transfer their visa to company employment visa, they will have to exit the country. In this case, if you have to transfer you visa to employment visa or job visa, then you will need to carry an air ticket before you cancel your existing residency visa. This means before your company could apply for your visa and labour approvals at the Ministry of Labour, you will need to exit the country.

As per the Residency Department official, the woman will be given 7 days to leave the country.

Previously in UAE, if you wanted to change your residency visa, you could do this by paying AED500, and getting your residency transferred from husband sponsorship or father’s sponsorship to employment visa. Only individuals on visit visa had to exit the country before they could transfer to employment visa.

This move might cause a lot of trouble for the ladies and their families. Like one lady, who I spoke to said, “what will happen to my kids? Now I need to spend air fare charges for them as well and the airfares are expensive these days.”

I do not exactly know the reason for this sudden change.

I believe the Ministry of Labour takes proper steps.