Citing skyrocketing costs, Qatar plans to bring in more domestic workers by tapping manpower agencies in nine new countries.

The countries include Bosnia, Armenia, Macedonia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tanzania, Kenya, Morocco and Sudan.

Previously, government officials had green-lighted recruiting efforts for gardeners, cooks, maids, drivers and nannies from Nepal, Djibouti, Myanmar and China.

That move had been criticized as a deliberate strategy to circumvent wage and treatment requirements from countries where Qatar’s domestic labor currently comes from, including the Philippines.

Workers from these new countries will certainly fill a growing need for domestic help here, but one can’t but wonder, given how poor most of these nations are, about how much they’ll be paid and what rights they’ll have.

Thoughts?