i used to be skeptical when told by some of my malaysian friends that their maids are stupid, naive, and spoil. but reading the article from the Star below, i begin to believe in their stories.
Employers against mandatory days off
PETALING JAYA: Employers are against the proposal to grant a mandatory day off in a week for their maids.
Some of them expressed concern that their maids would mix with bad hats if they were allowed to roam freely on their days off.
They felt that off days should be on a mutual basis between the employer and the maid and not be dictated by law.
A housewife from here who wished to be known only as Puan Azizah said her Indonesian maid of 13 years had never asked for a day off and she seemed happy to be working for the family on a full-time basis.
“Where will they go on their own if they get an off day?” she asked.
Another employer W.H. Khoo, 44, expressed concern that the maids would be distracted and there was a danger of them mixing with the wrong company.
“I take my maid to the cinema and shopping. But I will discourage the proposal of a mandatory day off for maids,” she said.
Jim, 62, who works with a trading company said he did not mind taking his maid along on family outings but he was worried about his maid’s safety if she was to be on her own.
Asean Federation for Psychiatry and Mental Health president Prof Dr Mohamad Hussain Habil said one day off was inadequate and maids should be treated equally like any worker under labour laws.
He added that a guideline should also be set for employers on the do’s and don’ts in treating their maids.
(http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/18/nation/4139629&sec=nation)
imagine folk! according to…“some of them their maids would mix with bad hats if they were allowed to roam freely on their days off”. this excerpt shows us that those maids are really ignorant if not idiotic so they can never judge who to befriend and who do avoid. ah, poor kind employer. it has become a burden for them to protect maids with child-like quality they have hired. the slogan is “the white man’s malaysian employers’ burden”. (thanks Rudyard Kipling!).
Moreover, this Puan Azizah said [that] her Indonesian maid of 13 years had never asked for a day off and she seemed happy to be working for the family on a full-time basis. see…..working for 13 years without a single day off and SEEMED happy about it. i think her maid is really stupid. i believe the maid has no single knowledge on articles in labor law about rights of workers, so she never asks for a day off. OR, she loves her master so much that she will never leave her master’s side. Or, the master is simply exploitating her maid’s dilligent nature and naivity. If I were the maid, i would ask for some days off. i m no robots and i need sometimes to have fun (of course nobody will hire me as maid there he he he he).
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stupid maids. no, i will soften my language. un-learned maids. ah no. it must be naive maids. not too.
bah, whatever!!!! but one true thing. those less-lucky-less-powerful-less-educated human are being exploited by their more bla bla bla human fellow because of their so many less-ness.
my words: it’s colonialism in its new face.
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June 19, 2009 at 10:27 am
colson
Hear, hear!!!
Yes, it’s colonialism in its new face.
It’s also the West European’s industrial 19th century revisited.
And it is not all that different from slavery, or rather serfdom in the past, in the present and in the future.
Whenever someone has limitless power over other people, chances are about 99% he ( she) will ruthlessly exploit them and about 98% he ( she) will cover it up by hypocrisy.
June 24, 2009 at 5:40 am
Lilac Rose
Memberi cuti kepada Indonesian maids ? Ridiculous. Kita boleh bawa dia keluar bercuti, tengok wayang dan jalan-jalan tapi bukan bagi dia keluar seorang diri. Nanti dia dapat aids macam mana ? Kan semua orang tahu, maid punya mentality lain sikit. Kalau tidak, kenapa banyak maid yang bagi majikan minum kencing, makan haid (period) mereka. They are not educated . It will coz more harm than good if let them roam outside. They may not concentrate on their work and have contact outside. This will lead to many kind of problems later. I dun agree at all.
June 24, 2009 at 12:20 pm
delvi
yes lilac! i second you. “maid memang punya mentality lain sikit”, you said? totally agree. correct one. seratus peratus saya sokong awak punya idea. yet they are uneducated right!!! so, it’s just normal if they act they way you generally stereotype them.
but you, you are learned enuf rite? so why do you still want to hire maid? doesn’t it mean you are risking yourself and family by hiring mentally-ill personalities?
hope will protect you and you loved ones dear!! i m one hundred percent sincere here.
June 24, 2009 at 4:37 pm
colson
@ Lilac Rose: I take it you of course are not serious in the way you describe the maids’ alleged mentality and fearful witchcraft ability. I assume your comment is irony, (by the definition: irony is when you say the opposite of what your mean). Even if your comment is gross irony (f.i. where you refer to the maids’ periods), I am all with you.
Otherwise the content of your comment maybe an interesting case, but is hard to understand.
The attitude of the employers of these maids described here, at best can can be characterized as patronizing and old fashioned exploitation. I mean they want, based on their assumed superiority, to keep unlimited control over the lives of others to their own advantage. Which is not new in history: nobility used to direct the lives of their farmers, “Belandas” used to direct the lives of the “Inlanders”, men used to direct the lives of women and the very rich use to direct lives of the poor . And now some employers do the same in relation to their maids. It’s colonialism in a different outfit.
Whether or not a person has been educated, is irrelevant as to her human rights. Moreover there has never been established a significant correlation between education and decent behavior. Low education didn’t prevent the majority of poor people to be law abiding citizens. High education didn’t prevent some of them becoming criminals.
For example: the likes of Paris Hilton may be well educated, but are behaving scandalous, most people would say. And if you ask me, they and the country’s “Golden Youth” may be more prone to contract HIV than the overwhelming majority of the hardworking Indonesian girls in Malaysia.
October 8, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Farina @ SaltNTurmeric
Delvi, I understand what you’re saying but you must understand the employer’s predicament. It’s not about patronising nor exploitation.
Let me ask you these things.
Do you have to pay large amount of money to employ a maid in Indonesia? I doubt it but We do.
Are you stuck with the maid once you’ve hired them? I doubt so but we are until they either run away or we returned them and have to pay the fees of bringing another person in. (It’s around RM4000-RM6000 each).
Do you have to teach the maid to cook the rice in rice cooker or wash the clothes in the washing machine or clean the house using the vacuum cleaner, among other things? I doubt so but we do.
Do you have to pay fine if your maid runaway? I doubt it but we do.
Would your maid dare to run away while you’re at work leaving your children and toddler at home? I dont think so. But that happened to my brother and his kids. The youngest then was only 2 years old.
You don’t have illegals there because well, almost everybody is Indonesian. Unlike in Malaysia where the illegal Indonesian are double the amount of the legals and you cannot deny the problem that these illegals would cause.
For every horror story that you hear about maid being abused, there are hundreds more ‘abusing’ their employers by doing all sort of things that are not being reported in the news. Im not justifying the abusive employers. But I have been told stories by my friends and families about their maids. 1 friend actually had her newly arrived maid telling her that she wants to work at Tesco! Can you imagine how she felt after paying thousands to get the maid and waited for months to only be told that to her face?
This ‘fear’ is not exaggerated. Malaysian employers are always getting played by the agents who brought these maids in and there is no guarantee either.
Imagine you as a business owner. You hired somebody to do something for you but you’d have to pay a huge amount of money to bring that person in. Then you found that that person can’t do shit so you ended up having to teach him/her to do everything. On top of the salary, you also have to pay for all the utilities, food, clothing, sanitary pad, calling card, cellphone and etc. Then 1 day that somebody ran away with all your jewelleries and other stuff. You reported it but were told that you would be fined and if you want another one, you’d have to pay again.
That is what Malaysian employers have to go through. The system is so lop-sided and driving the employers crazy. if only the Indonesian and Malaysian gov can come up with a solution like making the maids to come up with the money themselves, maybe none of them would run away and the employers would gladly give them a day off. That being said, pls do know that a lot of them already gave their maid day-off.
I believe that if the system is fixed, everybody would be happy.
October 9, 2009 at 5:21 am
delvi
@farina: one thing u employer employing indonesian maid there in the peninsular should learn is that the maid you hire come from the lowest ladder of the social class ever exists in the society. they are poor and uneducated that they might never see a rice cooker, or vacuum cleaner, washing machine, hair dryer even ice cream in their lifetime before working as maid in malaysia. if they are not poor why they want to clean someone’s toilet in a far away country!
Most of them do not even know that Jakarta is a way way way bigger than Kuala Lumpur since they’ve never been there. Some of them even cannot read and write (i personally filled in her arrival card when one of them was on the same flight with me).
Most of them do read law that they dare to run away for (i doubt) a better chance without any possession of any legal paper since either you employer or agent hold their passport. if such trivial thing they have no idea about it so no need to wonder they will ever bother to think about the penalty they might get for bracing a work contract. some crook agent might told them back in kampung that they will work in a “kilang” or tesco in malaysia but they end up working as maid, so they run away.
One last thing, not all of them are angels. some might be crooks, thefts, rapist, murderer or merely fooling and irresponsible. It’s pretty normal, rite? you correct then when your maid steal ur stuff lodge a police report. we do the same back here.
yet about giving a day off, i think there should not be any debate on it. it’s every worker basic right. maid are worker, rite? they’re not slave. I think the media also should highlight an angle employers who have already a day off for their maid as mentioned above.
who to blame?
i will blame my government for their lameness in creating more jobs back home so my people do not need to scrub someone else’s toilet in a foreign country.
and i do agree if the system is fixed so it will bring justice to both parties (employers and employee) everybody will be really happy.