I was reading about the government’s plans to introduce a mandatory 1 day off per week policy among domestic workers in Malaysia. The opposition among employers is not unfounded, given the high rate of runaway maids in the country, with a proportion of the cases linked to agents who ‘re-use’ the maids after the probationary period (when the employer can still claim for refunds and exchanges) is over.
It’s not just a case of whether you’re for or against the day-off policy. Before any such policy is implemented, the government must first consider how it deals with present issues that domestic workers face.
Are the existing support structures adequate for cases of abuse? How are maids protected from employers who exploit them by withholding salaries or sharing them among family members? I realised when going through the process here in SG, the penalties for ‘lending’ my helper to others are high, whereas it’s a common practice in Malaysia for one helper to be shared among family members. As in the Siti Hajar case, her only recourse was to run to her own embassy. What if this happened to a domestic worker in Terengganu? Are the police there capable or willing to give assistance, given the fact that they seem helpless when it comes to helping out locals with simple crimes like burglaries.
The next thing the government needs to consider is what these foreign domestic workers will do on their day off? Public transportation in Malaysia has huge drawbacks and most new housing estates aren’t even serviced by bus companies. Single local women who walk home from bus stops often become victims of snatch thieves and molesters, what would become of foreign women who are new to the country, have no other local acquaintances other than their agents and employers and whose own village back home may be vastly different from the metropolis that they now reside in?
My Indonesian helper gets a day off at least once a month. She leaves early Sunday morning and comes home before Maghrib on her own, because the bus and MRT system is efficient, safe and can take her to wherever she needs to go. She comes home before nightfall mainly because she doesn’t like being out alone at night. When she’s out, she meets friends at her embassy or at events the various agents organise around the island. Sometimes there are Indonesian themed events, like expos or concerts which she finds out about via Starhub’s news SMSes.
It takes a lot to form a support structure when you’re in a new country. Even as a foreign student, it’s not easy to go out there and ‘mingle’. Foreign students get into enough trouble that universities have special induction programmes to brief them on local laws, their rights and where they can go for help or for friends. Indonesian maids are not unlike foreign students, with the exception that they are already at a severe disadvantage (language/education/finances etc) in their host country.
Agents in Malaysia can charge as much as RM8000 in fees and maids often have to forgo wages for months as part of the package.In SG, the most I’ve heard an agent charge is SGD2000 with running costs of SGD250/month (for non-citizens/PRs) as maid levy payable to the government. Maids here now forgo about 6 months of wages when they first arrive in Singapore and there is a local NGO similar to Tenaganita that runs a shelter for domestic workers who have issues with their employers and are awaiting Ministry of Manpower (MOM) resolution. These shelters provide employment assistance and skills training. My helper, proficient in English, was runner for them during her own stint at the shelter. She helped Indonesian maids new in Singapore and who can’t speak fluent English go about their affairs with MoM and the police (in abuse cases).
The story isn’t as simple as ‘pressing ahead despite opposition’ as the government has stated in the press. Yes, maids are humans too, they need a rest day, an opportunity to socialise and as women in a foreign (and increasingly lawless country), protection that should be accorded to all women.
