Women from some of Bahrain's poorer families have been volunteering for work as housemaids in a move that could eventually replace large numbers of imported servants. The scheme is being organised by a local charity. As our correspondent Frank Gardiner reports from Dubai, it could spell an end to the long standing taboo on Gulf women working as domestic maids;

Until now the idea of Gulf women doing domestic chores for a living has been considered both demeaning and unnecessary. With a vast pool of imported labour from the Far East and the Indian sub-continent the Gulf has enjoyed twenty years of cheap foreign domestic labour but in the island state of Bahrain that may be about to change.

With the country's job market straining to keep pace with the rapidly expanding population, the government is under pressure to deal with the problem of unemployment. Now the Naim charity fund has handed out questionnaires to poor Bahraini families to gauge their willingness to work as domestic servants.

The chairman of the fund, Zakaria Ali Rahim, was quoted in the local paper, Gulf News, as saying the response had been encouraging. He said many women who had been depending solely on charity were now willing to work as baby-sitters as a prelude to being employed as maids.