Private firms to hire ‘Mosque Watchers’

The government and private entities are introducing a new job category called “Mosque Watchers.” 
The purpose of the job is to protect places of prayers, mostly at commercial centers. The job will also be a separate “wage category” under the private sector.
The private sector has said the new position for women as mosque watchers began at the beginning of the Hijri year and some establishments will start implementation as of the new year according to specific cases. 

An investor in the industrial sector, Emaduddin, said: “It should be obligatory to protect public institutions and not rent certain departments and rooms with no supervision and follow up. Because of this, it was decided to create this new employment position, especially in commercial complexes.”
He said the position included all day monitoring of both men’s and women’s prayer rooms. He noted that some establishments close the prayer rooms after the last prayer in the evening and the duties of the monitors, both male and female, would cease at this time.
This new employment position is not only for commercial complexes, institutions and industrial concerns, but also for public schools if their budgets are under their control and supervision. 
The decision will rest with the school administrators, he added.
This has been further emphasized by Munira Bubshait, head of a secondary school in Alkhobar.

“The position of mosque monitoring is decided by the school management as it is under the school articles,” she said, adding that a number of schools have already introduced it into their systems because of its importance. However, she said other schools consider this position as unimportant and have not introduced it because they pointed out there was already monitoring at the schools’ gates. 

Some public and private universities have agreed to the new position but it has been left for them to decide.
Nahla Saleh, supervisor at one of the malls, said supervisors in women prayer rooms must be on the alert for strange behavior and must provide security and also control beggars.