No justice over berserk maids
Nisha KrishPublished: Jan 20, 2010 9:12 AM | Updated: Jan 20, 2010 9:14 AM
There we go again with another incident of a maid having gone berserk. She has tried to burn the house down and she is just 14 years old.
The atrocities of foreign maids, especially Indonesians, are endless and are getting from bad to worse. We have had maids causing physical harm to their employers and abusing kids under their charge and lots more.
And yet, we get very little coverage of these in the media. Why? But maid abuse is portrayed as being rampant, again thanks to our local media. I am in no way saying maid abuse should be tolerated but the havoc the maids cause is far more graver and there seems to be a lack of will to do anything about it.
I paid close to RM9,000 to get my maid and just six months into employment, she scooted off, leaving me and my family utterly disgusted. She was extraordinarily good in her work and my younger son was very attached to her. I treated her like my own daughter and yet she did not have to think twice about doing what she did.
Let me tell you that the ‘G2G’ (government-to-government0 agreement on the maid issue with Indonesia may not be settled as yet, but Indonesians seeking employment are wasting no time and are finding other means of getting into this country.
I know a group of Indonesians girls who are here on tourist visas and were sourcing out prospective employers to work with. Their demands were sky high. To begin with, the employer will need to apply to convert her tourist permit into a work permit but when everything is done, they would probably run away again and there will be no end to this.
When we report a runaway maid, the police do not even bat an eyelid and they tell us point-blank that finding them would be impossible. There is zero effort to look for the maid and the police report becomes a mere formality and the cost is the employer’s time and effort.
To add salt to the injury, having lost the initial sum for procuring the maid by legal means and then left stranded with no domestic help, the employer is further slapped with a fine by the Immigration Department for the runaway maid
Is there any justice in this? Where is the employer’s protection and security for the heavy investment?
The atrocities of foreign maids, especially Indonesians, are endless and are getting from bad to worse. We have had maids causing physical harm to their employers and abusing kids under their charge and lots more.
And yet, we get very little coverage of these in the media. Why? But maid abuse is portrayed as being rampant, again thanks to our local media. I am in no way saying maid abuse should be tolerated but the havoc the maids cause is far more graver and there seems to be a lack of will to do anything about it.
I paid close to RM9,000 to get my maid and just six months into employment, she scooted off, leaving me and my family utterly disgusted. She was extraordinarily good in her work and my younger son was very attached to her. I treated her like my own daughter and yet she did not have to think twice about doing what she did.
Let me tell you that the ‘G2G’ (government-to-government0 agreement on the maid issue with Indonesia may not be settled as yet, but Indonesians seeking employment are wasting no time and are finding other means of getting into this country.
I know a group of Indonesians girls who are here on tourist visas and were sourcing out prospective employers to work with. Their demands were sky high. To begin with, the employer will need to apply to convert her tourist permit into a work permit but when everything is done, they would probably run away again and there will be no end to this.
When we report a runaway maid, the police do not even bat an eyelid and they tell us point-blank that finding them would be impossible. There is zero effort to look for the maid and the police report becomes a mere formality and the cost is the employer’s time and effort.
To add salt to the injury, having lost the initial sum for procuring the maid by legal means and then left stranded with no domestic help, the employer is further slapped with a fine by the Immigration Department for the runaway maid
Is there any justice in this? Where is the employer’s protection and security for the heavy investment?
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