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| Friday, 4 June 2004 |
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Maids as slaves: Asia's hidden shame KUALA LUMPUR, AFP)
Few women in Asia physically torture their maids, as a wealthy Malaysian housewife is alleged to have done recently, but many are accused of treating them like slaves. Ethnic and class prejudices are responsible for the way employers subject maids to excessively long hours with little or no time off and pitiful pay, says Ivy Josiah, executive director of Malaysia's Women's Aid Organisation. "It's about power. Some of the time it's because of their own insecurities and their need to retain some form of power," she said. "It's an almost perfect environment for abuse. It creates opportunities for that kind of cruelty, the perversion, degradation and mental torture." Josiah was reacting to the outcry in Malaysia and other countries in the region over the horrific case of Nirmala Bonet, an Indonesian maid who was burnt so badly with a hot iron on her breasts that her nipples fell off. That was only one instance of the abuse the 19-year-old daughter of farmers from East Timor suffered in five months of beatings and burnings that left her body so badly scarred that photographs published around the world raised international concern. The woman who is alleged to have done this is in jail awaiting trial. But of equal concern to social activists is the fact that every day around Asia maids are subject to cruelty for which they have no recourse to the law. "Nirmala's case is an extreme case," said Josiah. "It's the everyday abuse that we are also concerned about, such as no off-days, lack of food, lack of bedding, not receiving wages, and so on." Many employers, whether Asian or expatriate, are guilty of these charges, according to reports from around the region, where the growing number of middle-class households are turning to maids to run their homes and look after their children. In Singapore, a tough campaign to curb employer abuses against foreign maids has improved their working conditions, but civic activists calling for more reforms say indignities persist. Unlike in Hong Kong where the law stipulates a minimum wage and at least one rest day a week, the Singapore government does not provide a standard contract for maids. The Ministry of Manpower says it is "impractical" to lay down exhaustive rules regarding the minimum welfare guidelines for domestic workers, and instead seeks to protect maids using stiff penalties. In the most extreme case, Ng Hua Chye, a 47-year-old tour guide, was sentenced to more than 18 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane last year for manslaughter after his Indonesian maid died following nine months of beatings which left more than 200 injuries. One Singapore woman was jailed for five years for various counts of abuse, including biting a nipple off an Indonesian maid. Many of the maids in Singapore come from impoverished villages in the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Most of Hong Kong's 240,000 foreign domestic helpers - the politically-correct term for maids - are also from the Philippines, with Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka contributing significant numbers. While there are occasional stories of abuse, and on the rare occasion, rape by employers, the conditions Hong Kong maids work under are relatively good, if cramped and overworked. In Thailand, most domestic workers come from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, and rights activists say that because labour laws do not cover domestic work there are no standards for the employer or worker. The MAP foundation, which promotes labour rights, says maids are the most difficult migrant workers to reach, and that there are few statistics on how many there are or what treatment they receive. Cases of maid abuse occasionally emerge in the newspapers, often involving young migrant woman or girls, some barely in their teens, who are kept in conditions of virtual slavery and subjected to physical and sexual attacks. In Pakistan, according to a report by Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), there are some 200,000 Bangladeshi women and a similar number from Myanmar who have been trafficked or illegally brought to the southern port city of Karachi. The trafficked women are used for stealing, selling, begging and at times as maids, it said. In China, a growing number of affluent Chinese in urban areas are employing maids, who were previously hired mainly by expatriates. Virtually all are Chinese from rural areas, with a full-time domestic worker getting around 120-180 US dollars a month - good money for someone from a poor village, and reports of abuse are rare. The Japanese, while wealthier than most other Asians, employ few maids as foreigners are banned from entering the country as domestic workers. In impoverished Bangladesh, however, an estimated 300,000 children work as housemaids in the capital Dhaka, according to the NGO Shoishob. Employment as a maid means much-needed income and one less mouth to feed for poor families and conditions are generally poor and unregulated. A wage of 1,000 taka per month (16 US dollars) would be considered good. Only the worst cases of abuse come to light, such as that of eight-year-old Liza who was discovered last December suffering from burns caused by a heated spoon and having hot oil poured onto her. Burning maids seems to be a popular form of punishment, and Malaysia is mulling the idea of psychiatric tests for would-be employers. This was among the suggestions discussed by the Malaysian and Indonesian governments to be included in a memorandum of understanding on the training, recruitment and employment of maids, human resources minister Fong Chan Onn said in the wake of the Nirmala Bonet case. |
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