The Maid - When They Are No Different From Other Family Members

I had never seen Suri*'s eyes as red as yesterday morning while at Changi Airport.

She was sending My Niece off to Beijing.
Her parent was already there since last week and since school is close for 4 weeks, the whole family reunited.

Suri, for the time being, will be in Singapore.
She is still waiting for her result.

At the same time, My Younger Sister is looking around for Suri to be enrolled in local university.
She sees into her study.
My Elder Sister's Daughter too, chipped into Suri's education, guiding her A-Math.

And Suri herself, the three of them, are all confident of getting her enrolled in university.
After all, she had always came out first in a class of 30 students, all housemaids.
Suri herself very well knew, she will be a graduate, one fine day.

Just hoping she can continue working with the family and furthering her education in Beijing.
She was together with them in Beijing during the March holiday which I had blogged earlier.

When teary-eyed Suri left Terminal One before My Niece checked-in, the memory of the late Puji which I shared here, flashed back at that moment.
Not only Suri left the airport crying, but My Niece too, red eyed with blank stares as Suri walked away.

But since the 6-year old Girl knew She will be together with Her Parent, so She stay-put at Her sitting place.
Otherwise, She will run straight into the bibik's arms.
These two-weeks is going to be the longest time My Niece is away from Suri.

Previously, after her two years was up, and she was asked to return home, she refused.
Then when My Sister went to Australia during her third year, she could not follow.
She still had two more papers to sit for her examination.
That was when she decided to make a short return home to Demak.



Again, that reminded Me of a Filipino maid Hilda Estopasi Xavier, who stood by her employer when the husband died of heart attack.
She did not mind her employer has no money to pay her salary.
She just wanted her to employer to pay the Singapore government her levy.
All because of the three young children whom she was attached to.

It reminded me yet of another maid, who offered to help out with her employer's daughter-in-law, a person I know, of financial difficulties.
The maid would wake up very early to prepare breakfast 'Nasi Lemak', to be sold by the children.

The maid was employed by the working mother-in-law, as her son was in jail.
The elderly lady paid the maid's salary and government's levy of S$265.
She took full responsibility of her son's absence from the family, so that her daughter-in-law can go out to work to pay for the housing and the five children's education.

******

That's so much about Suri, and more in the previous postings.
She has great concern for everybody.

She was never without home-cooked food for mothers waiting for their children whenever she waited for My Niece to finish Her "Iqra'" class.

****** 

"Ummie, rasa,"
as she shoved me the curried pickled gooseberry, "acar cermai" when I was at My Sister's place, when My Mother was there. 

"Bawa balik Johor."
She showed me the big quantity that she had cooked earlier.

I tasted one, and declined her offer.
It will be left untouched at My house.

I was curious seeing the big amount of gooseberry in the pot.
She claimed as most of her SMA classmates were working for mostly expatriates and some Chinese (she is the only person with a Malay family), none of them ever knew that the fruit exists in Singapore.

When she was at My house last April, she did not forget her Business Study classmates too.
I was having a feast then, and she packed food for her friends.
The class was about to end, so they wrapped it by having potluck the next day.
The class was conducted by staff of a well known Indonesian cosmetic line.
The students are all housemaids.

Suri had wanted Me to attend her farewell gathering at one of the hotel along Orchard Road.
She was proud of her booth that she set up and had been talking about it for days.
Unfortunately, I could not leave Nora* with My Mother alone at My house, as she was still new to the environment.
Though Nora* is with My Mother now, Suri still never forget to prepare what My Mother likes best.

******

Before, there's just Suri.
But now, Nora has become family members too.

She used to ask Me,
"Bu, kenapa harus tunggu empat bulan baru Bapak ambil saya?"

I have no answer to it.
And I am not the person who harp and regret on past incidence.
Whatever happened, there must be lesson for us to learn.

Nora was reluctant to work abroad, if not for her failed crop.
She was half-hearted to go to Singapore, as she had never heard of Muslims in Singapore.
And she was half-hearted to go to Malaysia too, thinking of the salary.
She definitely did not want to return to Saudi, too faraway.
But when she was told that there are Muslims in Singapore, she prayed hard that, Singapore Muslims have the same believe as she does.

Maybe, just maybe, although she was confused when she was returned to the maid agency which I had blogged earlier, GOD wants to show her that not all employers are the same as the one she had earlier worked for.

Nora is a person who makes religion her way of life.
She covered herself.

She put on the smallest headscarf she could find, just to cover her hair, much to her previous employer's dislike. 

"Singapore is no Saudi. So, don't cover yourself."

The employer used to remind her whenever she covered her hair when there were adult males at home.
But she still covered herself in that four months, refusing to let go the small scarf when her employer's husband or her father-in-law was around.

Nora performed her Zohor at 5pm, and Maghrib at 12midnight.
Midnight was when her work ended, for the day.
Luckily she had her employer's mother-in-law who stood by her.

Occasionally, from My Brother's house, Nora will call the elderly lady to inform of her well being.
Nevertheless, she thanked her 4-months Singapore employer for opening her eyes to the other side of being Muslim and being Singaporean.
Not all Muslims are tattooless, and some Muslims are clothed the minimal possible.

****** 

Nora had always told Me that she pray for Paradise for her former Saudi employer and her family.

She said, although the woman is one very beautiful woman on earth, she had never looked down on anybody.

Even when Nora intended to give some rice to her then one floor neighbour friend, as the employer is said to be a non-rice eater, her employer insisted that the neighbour's maid is very well taken care of, just like her.
The employer has had never bad thinking of others.

Communication breakdown is common issue about runaway maid whom I had encountered and shared here while waiting for a bus to MRT.

Misunderstanding often led to frustration and led to abuse, which I had blogged about of many incidences in this blog.
Again, not to about shaming others and My own religion, but that's reality in life.
When I showed Nora about happenings to Indonesian maids in Saudi in this blog, that's the first time she knew more of it, not only about bad employers, but bad maids too.

Same as all the above maids, Nora faced communication difficulties too, during her first few months in Saudi.
But her excellent employer asked her to take her time, as she herself has to learn Nora's language too.

Nora was never lonely in Saudi.
Her employer's mother lives next door.
Come weekends, the married children of the elderly mother will usually gather at her place, all bringing their maids, all happened to be Indonesian, and all from Java island.
Or, Nora would accompany her teacher employer to frequent wedding invitations, which maids, mostly Indonesian, will tag along.
She had performed her Umrah and Haj, all paid by the excellent Saudi employer. 

When the employer intended to move to their 3-storey bungalow, Nora was informed.
That was when she decided to return home after her 4-year stint with the only employer.
The employer asked her to choose another Indonesian maid to accompany her and to lighten her workload.

After the chosen one was briefed by Nora, she insisted on going home.

To make her stay, the employer negotiate hard with her, to which she replied,
"She will not be able to use the salary she earned, to send home to feed her family, if she worked half-heartedly. 
The money will not be  blessed, can be considered "haram" too, for doing things without sincerity.
There are effects we knew not, if the employer's family will not be sincerely looked after."
Nora was then quickly sent home to Surabaya.

The other day, My Eldest Sister said, She had never seen more beautiful Qur'an than the one She saw Nora was reading.
I shared the same view as Her too.
Maghrib to Isya' is her reading time, as what My Mother does everyday.

And yes, Nora said, the Quran is a gift by a niece of her Saudi employer before she depart home.  

****** 

"Bu, piala siapa punya?" 
Nora asked as she cleaned and arranged the many trophies.

"Kesemuanya anak saya. Kenapa?"
I was curious.

"Kalau punya orang yang dulu, saya tak mau bersihkan. Tak enak."
That is Nora.

I had just moved to a new place last April.
The former owner had left many still new and untouched belongings.
The house had been empty for a few years, only occupied when many relatives of theirs from Northern Malaysia whenever they dropped by.

The owner maintain the house in good condition, with cleaner dropped by to clean the house every month.
They had asked us to move in early, the moment My Husband and I said We intended to purchase the house from them, some time in July last year, so that they knew their house will still be looked after.
The husband had even promised to send over pots of flowers to be planted around the house.
But the house has already no less than 30 potted plants around the place. 
The couple have great affection for the house.

But no papers had been signed, not even any monies had been paid, so not too nice for us to move too early.

******

I was surprised at Nora's question.
But soon realised when she told Me she knew of people bought trophies to be decorated at home, for pride.
What ??? 

"Betul Bu. banyak dikampung seperti itu."

******

Nora had mentioned rose guava to My Elder Sister.



But when My Elder Sister bought for her at RM6.00 per kilo, she stopped her from buying for her again.

"Jangan beli lagi, Bu. Mahal. Ini kan buah belakang rumah."

"Cuba tengok, apa ada belakang flat Nyai. Mana ada pokok jambu. Rumah orang adalah," 
as My Elder Sister pointed to the kitchen window.

Nora laughed at herself.
She is in Singapore, not Surabaya.
The guava was tasteless to her.

When I happened to get for her not sooo fresh guava at RM2.80 per kilo, reminded her to eat all of it, and not to leave any, she thanked Me because upon tasting, she said, that's how guava should taste.
I could not figure what she meant.

Last week, I showed Nora the way to Sheng Shiong at Bedok.


"Bu, tak mau beli. Mahal. Cuma 4 dollar saja diGeylang."

"Kalau mahal, belikan Nyai aje."
True enough, she took just two of the big Yellowtail Scad or "Selar Hijau" for My Mother.

"Mahal Bu. 40 sen."

"OK. Kalau mahal, beli soya, bikin tempe sendiri."
She quickly took only 2 of the fermented soya cake.

I told her, if everybody wants things cheaply, then there will be no nearby amenities.
We take it that the excess we pay is the price of convenience and great saving on time and transportation.

Before we headed home, she was adamant to change the rice grain that My Brother bought, for My Mother's sake. 
But when I asked her to get her choice of food, she said, she eats what My Mother eats.
Do not have to waste so much money.
But one thing she cannot escape is munching away NTUC carrots as her snack.
I bought for her too from Giant when she was at My house, but she said it tasted different.
She did not touch any.

******

My Mother had wanted to follow Me home when we returned from the airport, after sending off My Niece.

But I need My Husband to drive them to JB.

Upon hearing that, I could see Nora smiling and her eyes sparkled as she reminded Me, 
"Suruh Abi ambil kami cepat sedikit."

That reminded Me of her when she laughed very heartily.
After eight months since she left her hometown in August 2010, finally she get the opportunity to step on real soil.
The earth under her feet, the sky above her head.
Not other person's roof below and on top of her.

She thanked GOD for giving her opportunity to rake away dried leaves.
Being a farmer's daughter, she was happy in getting herself close to mother earth, touching the soil with her bare hands.
She did not mind getting them dirty.



Always choosing "ciku" of the day, My Mother's favorite fruit.

 

And Nora really wanted the roses at My house to bloom just like her grandmother's, atop Kelud Mountain in Surabaya.  

The Maid - Unholy Acts In The Holiest Place (13)

Daring Escape (3)

Al-Jazirah newspaper reported, on May 18, police arrested and questioned three Indonesians, following the discovery of a body of an Indonesian maid near a wedding hall in Al-Naseem district a week earlier.

The woman had called the police before her death.
They traced the call made by the Indonesian maid in her 30s.

She was trying to escape from her sponsor by climbing down through the window of a third floor apartment.
The woman fell and suffered serious head injuries.

Three Indonesian men then took her home where she died.
The men panicked, and they then dumped her body near the wedding hall.

******

(Okaz photo)
Another Indonesian housemaid had her life shortened in the first Thursday on December 2010.
She met death from a fall through the window of a third-floor apartment in Jeddah’s Al-Safa District.

Owner of the apartment told Okaz/ Saudi Gazette the housemaid had escaped from her original sponsor in Hail.
The maid absconded from her employer in the northwestern town of Hail.
She then worked for the owner of the apartment in Jeddah.

She tried to escape when she learned that her former employer had traced her whereabout.
He was on his way to fetch her home.
The maid’s sponsor had earlier contacted the owner of the apartment in Hail, asking him to hold to her while waiting for his arrival.

But the maid upon learning her original sponsor would come and get her, she tried escaping from him using a rope made from knotted clothes.
She fell to the ground and instantly died.

The operations room of a police station in Northern Jeddah received a report about the incident.
Police found the woman’s body lying in a pool of blood.
The body was then transferred to the Forensic Medicine Administration to determine other injuries other than those caused by the fall.

An official letter will then be sent to her country’s consulate in preparation for her burial.

******

A 29-year-old Indonesian maid was only into her third month with her sponsor before she decided to jump from the employer's third floor home in the Al-Kakiya district of Makkah last December 23.

She was trying to escape to work illegally elsewhere but ended up in intensive care unit suffering from fractured bones and internal bleeding.

******

A driver offered a man of recruiting a new maid through illegal channel after his helper disappeared several week earlier.

But the man began to suspect the driver's activities.
The driver was under his observation.
To his surprise, he saw his former maid enter the drivers premises opposite his own home.

Okaz/SG reported the driver confessed to police that he had tempted the man's housemaid away from her employer.
She was promised better and more lucrative work.

The driver was then under detention for helping her to flee and for giving her shelter.
The woman was arrested in the last week of August.

******

Maid Leads Police To Liquor Den 
By MD RASOOLDEEN 

RIYADH: The arrest of a runaway housemaid led Riyadh police on Monday to a gang of criminals who were distilling liquor in Riyadh’s Sultana district.

The woman was stopped by police and questioned about her legal status.
They learned that she was a runaway maid who fled her sponsor five months ago.
According to police, the maid then fell prey to a group of men who had offered her a job with benefits, including an annual home-visit plane ticket.
But instead of employing her as a maid, the gang sexually exploited the woman.
“I had no choice except to give in for their pleasure since they threatened to take me to the police if I disagreed,” the maid is alleged to have told the police.
The maid led police to the location where they found six barrels of liquor, three small gas cylinders and three single burner cooker — all equipment used to distill fermented liquid into spirits.
The woman and an unreported number of men involved in the gang were detained.

Source: Arab News - April 29, 2010

******

Christine, a 26-year-old woman from Kenya.arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2009 at Jeddah’s international airport.

She obtained her work visa at the Saudi embassy in Nairobi, where she was promised a job as a children’s English teacher.

She arrived with seven other women, all in the same situation as she was.
Her "sponsor" came to pick her up at the airport.
He was accompanied by his wife and mother-in-law.
They told her that, for the time being, she would be teaching English to their own children.
But she quickly realised that she had been tricked.
Instead of taking her to their home, she went to the home of friends of theirs, where several Kenyans were already working as maids.
There, they removed her passport and cell phone (all her contact numbers in it), saying they would be returned the day she return home.
Then she was sent to work in the sponsor's mother-in-law’s home.
There, she met another Kenyan woman who had been working as a maid for two months.
She warned Christine of what lay ahead.
One month later, she was sent back to her main employer’s home.
There began a truly horrible period that lasted around four months.
She slept in a tiny, cramped room with a thin, hard mattress on the floor.
She had to ask for permission to eat.
She worked like crazy, doing all of the housework, from ten in the morning to five or six the next morning non-stop.
She wasn’t allowed to call home for two months.
When she finally did, she learned that her father was very ill and had been hospitalised.
She asked her employer – to whom she was not supposed to be allowed to talk to – if he could pay her salary so that she could return home to see her father.
She hadn’t been paid anything so far – her monthly salary was supposed to be of SR800.
But the employer and his wife refused, going so far as to tell her that, even if her father did pass away, it wouldn’t be too serious!
That’s when she understood that her only chance would be to run away.
Once out of the house, she took a taxi that brought her to the Guinean consulate.
She had a lot of trouble getting officials there to understand what was going, given that she only speak English. She finally ended up waiting for two months in the consulate’s courtyard.
Finally, she met Mohamed, 27, born in Africa but lives in Saudi Arabia...

Continue reading ....:

http://habarizanyumbani.jambonewspot.com/2010/09/08/runaway-kenyan-maid-describes-saudi-ordeal-i-worked-day-and-night-and-was-never-paid/ 

The Maid - Unholy Acts In The Holiest Place (11)

Daring Escape

A newly arrived Asian housemaid, in her 20s, had a fall three days ago, from the third floor of a residential building in Alkhobar, eastern town of Damman, Saudi Arabia.

She made the run away attempt from the seventh floor apartment through a kitchen window.
She then clung to pipes stuck to the building and started to slide down.
Upon reaching the third floor, the pipes collapsed due to her weight and she hit the ground, where she met the fatal fall.
Arab News reported she was rushed to a hospital with serious injuries but later died at the hospital.

******

Another death fall befell on a housemaid in her 40s, in an attempt to flee her sponsor's house in Makkah.

She was trying to escape through sanitary pipes along with her personal belongings.
Okaz / Saudi Gazzette reported the “homesick” housemaid arrived in the Kingdom two months ago in March, only to find death the next month, in the second week of April.

The housemaid suffered multiple fractures of her arms and legs.
She suffered from brain hemorrhage too, which caused her death.

******

Early this year, January 12, Arabic language daily Almadina reported yet another Indonesian housemaid's death.

The female migrant worker sneaked through the bathroom’s window in an attempt to flee her employer.
She went up to the roof of the the fourth floor building in the central town of Makkah.
Once there, she found a rope, dangled it down to reach the ground.
She then tried to climb down using the rope, but lost her balance and plunged down.

The maid laid on the ground for nearly 15 minutes before she died.

She was found by residents who were leaving a mosque after prayers.

****** 

Photo: ist

PT Aji Ayahbunda Sejati (AAS), flew then 19-year old Armayeh binti Sanuri, from Teluk Lerang, Kuala Mandor, in the district of Kuala Mandor, Pontianak, West Kalimantan, to Saudi Arabia.

She started working for the family of Hasim Ahmad Ali Bader Saeni and Madam Hanan Hasim in Madinah on March 24, 2009.

Armayeh admitted of receiving almost daily abuse and mistreatment from her female employer since the third month into her job.

Wounds and pus on her head.

Her head was often stepped on.

She suffered infectious ears, and were almost torn-like.

She was poured hot water too.

She could bear no longer. 

She seized the opportunity to flee from her working place when the door was not locked.

With wounds all over, she fled on January 26 at 3.30pm.

A neighbour, another Saudi citizen, who happened to spot her critical plight, helped to rush her to Al Ansar Hospital in Madinah at 10pm.

The medical staff immediately called the Indonesian Consulate General.
The Indonesian Consulate has agreements with some Saudi hospitals to notify the embassy or consulate, should an Indonesian national be admitted.

Armayeh's serious condition led her hospital stay transferred to King Fahad Hospital in Jeddah.
She underwent plastic surgery performed by team from King Abdullah Hospital at 1am.
She is currently, still receiving treatment.

Her female employer, Madam Hanan Hasin had been arrested.
Before the arrest was made, her employer visited Armayeh at the hospital.
The girl was offered SR18,000 (Rp 52.9 million) for her change of statement.
The offer was flatly turned down.

Although her salary is SR800 per month, she had just sent home SR6.000 Riyal (Rp 14,3 million) to her parents, during her 23 months stint in the Kingdom.

PT Aji Ayahbunda Sejati (AAS), who made Armayeh's presence possible in Saudi Arabia, bear full responsibility of the girl's welfare.

Her family was provided initial financial assistance of Rp 25 million (SR10,500), with insurance of Rp 100 million yet to receive.

PT Aji Ayah Bunda Sejati brought the parents of now 20-year old Armayeh binti Sanuri, to Saudi Arabia to see first hand of their daughter's condition.
The company provides their needs while in Saudi.

****** 

From Frying Pan To Fire Runaway Maids End Up In Harsher Conditions

JEDDAH: Housemaids who flee their sponsors due to bad working conditions to seek work in the black labor market often end up in a situation of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

In many cases they find themselves at the mercy of sleazy labor brokers who send them to work illegally in conditions that are little different from the legal situations, and often much worse. 
“They seize our IDs, lock us up in secluded rooms and make us live in very difficult conditions, which is no less than indentured servitude,” a maid told Arab News on condition she not be named.
Nuriyyah, an Indonesian maid who has been working for two years in Saudi Arabia, describes the situation she found herself in as “slavery” after being legally recruited and brought to the Kingdom. The wage she ended up receiving was not enough to feed her family back home.
“My sponsor often delayed my payment under the pretext that he had other pressing commitments,” she said. “I had no other choice but to flee.”
Nuriyyah said she lived in a small apartment after her escape with a large number of illegal housemaids who came for Haj or Umrah and overstayed their pilgrimage visas.  She said the man who ran the house essentially acted as an illegal-labor broker.
But what Nuriyyah discovered is that people who hire maids illegally often end up being worse than employers who seek workers through legal channels and at greater expense.  “The new employer and his wife used to beat and humiliate me all the time,” she said. “They also took my iqama. I served them for my food only.”
The maid says she has never been paid for her work. Eventually she fled her illegal employers. She ended up under the Sitteen Bridge, a congregation point for foreign laborers who have fled their sponsors in the hope they will be picked up by the police and deported.
Another Indonesian maid, who did not want to be named, said though she had been an adventurer all her life and would work hard to earn money, she had fears that she might fall victim to inhuman practices on the hands of her new employers.
“I now live in a small house with a large number of illegal African and Asian housemaids,” she said. “The brokers who distribute us among their customers do not care much for what will happen to us. They are only after money.”
She added that she was living in very difficult conditions in this house but her need for money would force her to continue.
The unidentified Indonesian housemaid said she witnessed her co-workers being beaten by merciless employers who know that illegal domestic servants are essentially hostages with few choices.
“Many housemaids had similar experiences but were finally able to make some money and go back home. In order to succeed, you have to take chances,” she said.
Commenting on the issue, spokesman for Jeddah police Col. Misfer Al-Juaid said many of the houses that accommodate runaway maids are found in the districts of Al-Bawadi, Ghulail and Kandara.
“We carry out weekly raids on such houses after identifying them,” he said. “We arrest the illegal residents, take their fingerprints before handing them over to the Passport Department for deportation.”
After these workers end up in the custody of Saudi immigration authorities, a long process for exit clearance takes place. Often these workers have no ID because their passports are with the employers from whom they fled. Saudi authorities must work with foreign missions to establish identities and check for criminal backgrounds before they can be sent home. 
Al-Juaid pointed out that an illegal worker can be exposed to more abuse than legal workers, because sponsors are aware that there is little recourse for reporting or challenging abusive situations. “The illegal housemaids bear all these inhuman treatment in order not to be caught by the passport police and sent back home,” he added.
The most common form of maid abuse is not paying salaries, followed by physical and sexual abuse. The Saudi authorities do not offer statistics of the number of abuse cases reported to them, but the problem is acute enough that labor rights activists and foreign missions – especially of Indonesia and the Philippines – maintain shelters for fleeing maids, especially women.
Supervisor of the National Society for Human Rights in Makkah province Hussain Al-Sharif described violence against housemaids as inhuman and un-Islamic.
“Just because they are paying them money, some employers will come to believe that they literally own their housemaids and they have the right to ask them to do anything,” he said.
Al-Sharif agreed with Al-Juaid, saying that illegal workers face a greater chance of being abused with impunity.
“Violence against housemaids, whether they are legal or illegal stayers, is inhuman and totally against Islam,” he added. “We completely reject such practices and deplore exploitation of any human being.”
Al-Sharif asked all employers to consider the pressing conditions that drove the housemaids to come all they way from their countries in the first place. The main reason is remittances, the money they can save up to send home to feed their children or other family members. Not paying a maid could mean a child back home goes without food, clothing or medicines.

Source: A1 Saudi Arabia - January 12, 2011

to be continued...

The Maid - Reliable? Biodatas

Employers Burnt By Misleading Biodata

MANY employers have been the victims of unreliable biodata provided to them by maid agencies.
Gina D. 51, working mother of four.
In 2006, I applied for a maid who was supposed to be 35 years old as stated in the biodata provided to me. She could pass for 35 from her photograph as well. However, when I picked her up from the agency I was shocked at how much older she looked.
She was definitely in her 50s or even older. I later found out that her hair was actually almost completely white and she had been dyeing it black to cover it up.
When I confronted my agency, they said that maids sometimes lie about their age. They couldn’t have known, they said, as the Indonesian agencies just send them the biodatas and the photos and they distribute that to their customers who make a choice.
As I really needed the help and didn’t want to go through the process of applying for another one, I thought I’d give her a chance.
We tried for a year before I decided to send her back. Because of her age she was very difficult to work with and would answer back frequently.
I can’t confirm if they let her work with someone else but I think she must have left the country as I applied for a check-out memo after deciding to send her back.
Once you apply for a check-out memo, the maid has to leave the country by a certain date and if she hadn’t left I wouldn’t have been able to apply for a replacement maid (which I was able to do).

Stretching the truth: Some agencies falsify biodata to make maids appear bigger and stronger than they actually are.

Susan, homemaker, mother of three.
I once had an underaged maid who lied about her age. In her biodata she had listed down her age as 24 or 25 but when she arrived you could tell she was very young. It turned out that she was only 15 and she didn’t know anything! She told me that the agency asked her to lie about her age or she would not be allowed into the country. I held on to her for as long as I could but in the end she just couldn’t handle the work
Another problem is when they claim to have worked with children before but when they come you can tell that they actually haven’t. I’ve not really sent back many maids before their contract has ended.
The agencies never take responsibility anyway. You tend to just ignore what you read in the biodata because you end up having to train them all over again.
From the biodata you choose a maid based on if you’re happy with her face, and that she’s physically well or can be at home alone and take care of dogs. The agencies are not going to bother checking either if they can actually do what they say.
Once when I was living with my mother-in-law, we had a maid who was three months pregnant when she arrived! We actually confronted the agency about it but they said they weren’t responsible as the maids are supposed to undergo a screening in Indonesia.
I think employers are victims in the sense that this maid had worked for my mother-in-law less than a year, and they said they’d give her another maid but she still had to pay all over again because the local agency wasn’t liable.
CG, KL, working mother of one.
My husband worked in Indonesia for a long time and from what he knew and from what people have told us, we didn’t want to employ a maid from this particular region of Indonesia as they are known to be aggressive. We made sure our agency knew that.
I picked my maid from all the biodata given to me because she fulfilled certain criteria and had completed her Form 5.
When she showed up, however, it turned out that she was from that region we weren’t keen on!
Also despite her biodata saying otherwise, she couldn’t cook. She had a horrible attitude – she was always falling ill and waking up late, probably because she was using the phone till late at night.
So after five months of her behaviour, we decided to send her back. We dropped her off at the agency who later told us she was being sent back to Indonesia.
I never went into her room as I respected her privacy, but when she left I had to. I found that she had been stealing things like money and had vandalised all my antique furniture in her room!
My agency never reimbursed us or even apologised.
Of course, there are agencies who now allow you to interview them (potential maids) over webcam but you can’t really trust that because it could be rehearsed.
I feel very violated and taken advantage of by that maid agency. I think it is the government’s fault really for never having put into place real procedures or ensuring that agencies’ standards are maintained.
Paula S, working mother of two.
In 2004, I applied for a maid to take care of my elderly mother. On both her biodata and her working permit, her age was listed as 25 years old. As she was tall we didn’t question it.
The next year when we were celebrating her birthday, we asked her how old she was going to be and she told us that she was only 19! She said the agency in Indonesia had asked her to lie about her age otherwise she wouldn’t get a job.
We didn’t inform the Malaysian agency so we don’t really know if they knew her real age.
But even if I had known then that she was only 18 when she came, I probably would have still employed her unless it was illegal as she was emotionally mature.
Low W.S. 54, homemaker, mother of three.
About seven or eight years ago, I employed an Indonesian maid. Her biodata was all right – she was 28 and had a husband and kids.
When she got here, though, and started working she was always complaining that she was tired at the end of the day, which didn’t seem right because she was so young. I suspected she was pregnant but didn’t say anything.
There’s supposed to be a screening procedure in Indonesia to make sure the maids aren’t pregnant before they are sent here. But maybe technology was different back then and they didn’t detect it.
However, after working for two months, I confronted her and she admitted that she was pregnant. I took her to a doctor and discovered that she was five months pregnant! So, of course, I sent her back to the agency and got a replacement maid.

****** 

Maid To Fit The Bill

For most people who are seeking to hire foreign maids, the biodata is their first introduction to their potential employee. However, the information it contains has proven to be not as truthful as it should be.
WITH her mother’s worsening health, Marie Gomez has no choice but to hire a foreign maid to help care for her. But after hearing numerous hair-raising stories about maids from hell, Gomez is being extra careful in the selection process.
“It is definitely not easy when you only have a stack of biodata to base your selection on. There is no guarantee that all the information submitted is true,” she says.
Even the pictures provided with the biodata raise doubts.
“The prospective domestic workers claim to be of average weight but they look really frail and scrawny in the pictures,” relates Gomez.
“I thought I had found one who looks strong and sturdy enough to look after my mother and help lift her if needed, but then I realised that her picture was stretched sideways to make her look bigger than she really is. In fact she is as scrawny as the rest.”

Age limit: The rule, according to the last memorandum of understanding between Malaysia and Indonesia, is that Indonesian domestic workers who are selected for work in Malaysia must be at least 21 years old and no more than 45. – Filepic

Falsification of biodata, including for their official documents, among foreign domestic workers is more rampant than we realise.
Chan G. from Kuala Lumpur likens selecting a maid from a biodata to buying a lottery ticket.
Says the working mother of one, “I picked my maid from all the biodata given to me because she fulfilled certain criteria and had completed her secondary schooling. When she showed up, however, she was nothing like what she claimed to be.”
Despite her biodata saying otherwise, she could not cook and her attitude was bad, she adds.
“She rang up a phone bill of RM1,400 at my house. She was completely disloyal and unreliable. We discovered later on that she was entertaining people at our home when we were not around as weird people began showing up at our doorstep. When I confronted her about her attitude three or four months after she came to us, she told me that she had not wanted to be a maid but had wanted to work at a factory instead. So we decided to send her back to the agent who promised to send her back to Indonesia.”
A few months after her maid left, says Chan, she started receiving threatening messages from her.
“I learnt later that she was not sent back to Indonesia and is now working for a new employer in Malaysia. My agency never reimbursed us or even apologised,” she says, adding that she will never hire a full-time maid again after her experience.
The biodata is basically a resume for the maid. It contains information about the identity, age and experience of the maid and other details such as their working preferences, willingness to handle pork, take care of dogs or care for the elderly.
“In many situations, however, this information is made up by the agents to make the maids more marketable,” says Migrant Care Malaysia country director Alex Wong.
Many employers keep mum when their domestic workers fail to live up to their biodata or when they find discrepancies in the information provided because “returning” them will cost money.
Employers would have to pay an additional “exchange” fee of between RM,1000 and RM3,000 for a replacement maid, or start the process all over again, forking out the standard fee of RM8,000 as required when one seeks to hire a foreign maid.
Wong alleges that this has created a “business” where some agencies sell their migrant workers to different employers after they are found wanting and sent back by their original employer.
Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) president Alwi Bavutty views this claim as rubbish but concedes that many foreign domestic workers who are sent to Malaysia, especially those from Indonesia, do falsify their personal details when applying for their passport and visa.
“But there is not much we can do because they are supposed to be screened before they come over,” he says.
Maid agency director Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahalan agrees, stressing that the biodata is a necessary evil because it provides an insight of the maid’s background for employers.
“It is for employers to choose according to their specification. Once they agree, they have to pay the Indonesian agent a 10% deposit to secure the biodata or to book the domestic worker.

Raja Zulkepley: ‘The biodata is a necessary evil because it provides an insight of the maid’s background’

“Most of the payment goes to the Indonesian agent. Our profit is only around RM630 per maid and we have to pay for our office expenses and staff,” he says.
Wong attributes the problem to the hiring system in place.
“True, currently the biodata is the only way that employers can check out the candidates but what you see on paper is often not what you get,” he says.
This has led to numerous cases of maids running away because they are not willing to handle dogs or pork, although their biodata clearly states otherwise.
“Malaysian employers need to be smart ‘consumers’ when they deal with the agencies instead of acting desperately and giving in to all the demands of the agents when they don’t do anything other than provide the biodata,” stresses Wong.
They need to ensure that the domestic workers they receive are trained. In Indonesia, for example, the regulation is that they get 200 hours of training. There are agencies who do not follow the regulation but they claim they do.
Malaysian agents are also supposed to “retrain” the maids they receive before dispatching them to the employer to ensure that they are able to do the work they have been hired for. Unfortunately, this is not a regulation in Malaysia.
Wong highlights that there are many Indonesian domestic workers who are lured to Malaysia to work as factory workers or shop assistants.
“Some even have it stated in their employment contract but when they get here, they are forced to become domestic workers because that is a more lucrative market. This causes a lot of bad blood between the employers and domestic workers,” he says.
Tenaganita programme coordinator Aegile Fernandez concurs, saying that many are sweet-talked into working abroad.
“They are promised lots of money and a better life to come to Malaysia. Some are promised other jobs – like work in a restaurant – but when they arrive they are forced to be maids.
“But they are bound to the agency because they have either spent a lot of money or owe the agency money for the ‘expenses’ to come to Malaysia. Some are even threatened with prostitution,” she says.
Wong believes that many Malaysian agents are colluding with their overseas counterparts to falsify the biodata and other documents of the foreign maids.
The most common “lie” is the age of the prospective domestic worker.
This is well demonstrated by the recent case of the underage maid who torched her employer’s sister’s home in Terengganu after he decided to send her back to Indonesia.
Early investigations revealed that she had gained entry with a proper but allegedly falsified document, which listed a fake name and birth date.
While the police were baffled about how she manipulated her personal details, anyone with a foreign maid at home or those who have gone through the experience of hiring one will vouch that this is part and parcel of the process of hiring a foreign maid.
The rule, according to the last memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Malaysia and Indonesia (we are currently in the midst of negotiations on a new one), is that Indonesian domestic workers who are selected for work in Malaysia must be at least 21 years old and no more than 45.
However, industry insiders say that the accepted average minimum age for Indonesian maids in Malaysia is 18, which is the minimum age allowed for Indonesians to work abroad.
The situation is that in most areas in Indonesia, registration of citizens is not strict while the control system is loose, so there are many abuses.
Most of the poor in rural villages don’t even bother to register their newborn babies for birth certificates or get proper identification papers (ID) when they come of age, he says.
“Many only do it when they want to work as a migrant or domestic worker. They are then assisted by their sponsors, who help process their paperwork to create their identity and get their ID for the purpose of applying for a passport and visa.
“To get a passport, the documentation requirement is more stringent but with a small payment, the process can be made easier and faster,” Wong says.
This is a common practice in Indonesia, he adds, and this is common knowledge among Malaysian agents who use it to their advantage.
“Many Malaysian agents just accept whatever documents and whoever the Indonesian agents send over to them without question. When problems arise, they pass the blame and responsibility back to the Indonesian agents.”
Alwy denies this, stressing that most of the time the minors get through our immigration gates because the documents are genuine.
“It is difficult for us to verify if the data is true or not. If it is accepted by the Indonesian authorities, we should accept it. We do have our own measures to check this; we will interview the candidates to ascertain their real age when we suspect that they are younger than they claim,” he says.
Fernandez warns employers who are landed with an underaged maid to report the case to the authorities.
“If you suspect that a maid is young, send her back and report the agency to the authorities. It is illegal to bring in underaged maids; it could surmount to human trafficking,” she says.
These underaged domestic workers are usually not able to handle the work or the conditions of the work, being isolated from other people and, more often than not, having no means of communication with their families back home.
“They do not have the maturity yet at that age to handle their emotions, what more when they are alone in a strange country. That is why some of them ‘explode’ and take revenge on their employers,” she cautions, citing the case of a 16-year-old Indonesian maid who stabbed her employer’s mother to death in Kuantan in 2008 after she allegedly got tired of the old lady’s nagging and scolding.
Employers really need to keep in mind that these underaged maids are basically still children, she adds.
“At 14 to 16 years old, for example, a girl is young and still wants to have fun. Many do not want to spend their days cooped up doing long hours of housework.”

Both Sources: The Star

The Maid - Why A No Malaysia, And A No - Yes, Singapore

Where Have S'pore's Indonesian Maids Gone? 
Radha Basu

It makes for an unlikely dream factory. At a whitewashed house on the outskirts of Jakarta, 120 Indonesian women are striving to fulfill a cherished migrant ambition.

They are training to be maids and to look after other people's homes in affluent parts of the region. It is often their only ticket out of penury.

Singapore has long been a coveted destination. But its allure is fading fast.

Ask how many want to work in Taiwan and 66 hands promptly shoot skywards. Another 39 favor Hong Kong, but only 15 cite Singapore as their dream destination.

Why is that, you ask. Singapore is safe, clean and so close to home. Why do they not want to work there?

"Money not enough, Ma'am," the women intone in unison. "Taiwan, Hong Kong got higher salary."

The labor squeeze that has long been a by-product of globalization and booming Asian economies seems to have reached the lower strata of the job market. Women, even from desperately poor backgrounds, can afford to be a bit choosier these days, as maid recruiters in Indonesia are finding out.

This group of women is being trained by Sejahtera Eka Pratama (SEP), an employment agency in Bekasi, near Jakarta.

A similar story is playing out in Pangkalan, a sleepy West Java hamlet about 250km away. Of the 5,000 families living there, at least 4,000 have a son or a daughter working in a low-paying job overseas. The hamlet's dirt roads are accessible only via motorbike.

Sukarma Mahmud, 50, a village recruiter who supplies Indonesian employment agencies with women willing to work as domestic labor overseas, is doing his rounds.

He is making his pitch to Kesih Suta, 23, as she sits on a mat in her parents' two-room home. She returned to her village last December after seven years away working as a maid in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

"You will earn more than you did for sure," he promises the petite woman whose last pay was around $320 per month. "You may even get four days off a month."

But Kesih, the eldest child of an odd-job worker and a farmer, looks unconvinced. "I can earn even more in Taiwan,' she says in Bahasa.

Sukarma changes tack. "You help me and I help you," he cajoles.

"You pay me something then?" she counters, as her two younger siblings - both under 10 - play nearby. "My parents could use the money.

Would 2 million rupiah (S$290) be enough, he asks.

'I'll think about it,' she smiles. 'No promises.'

Low pay, high qualifications
Indonesia is Singapore's biggest supplier of foreign domestic workers, with at least 90,000 of its citizens working in the Republic.

But a number of factors are taking the gloss off Singapore as a destination, as The Straits Times discovered during a recent visit to training centers and kampungs near Jakarta.

Interviews with 10 Jakarta-based employment agencies and dozens of women who have worked or plan to work as maids overseas found that low pay, high eligibility criteria and the surge in demand from Taiwan, where the women can earn twice what they can here, are undermining Singapore's appeal.

The relatively low wages that Singaporean employers pay for domestic help compared with rates in Hong Kong or Taiwan are by far the biggest disincentive.

An Indonesian maid with no experience who comes to Singapore gets around S$380 a month, though some recruiters are trying to increase that to S$450, with at least one day off.

With wage levels left strictly to market forces and individual employers and maids to determine, some earn even less. Some agencies in Indonesia still recruit maids for S$350 a month or less. Some of these operators are unlicensed.

In Hong Kong, where minimum wage laws are in place, a maid earns at least HK$3,580 (S$581), with at least one day off a week. Unlike in Singapore, domestic workers there are also covered by employment laws and entitled to all public holidays off plus paid annual leave.

Maids in Taiwan can command at least NT$15,840 ($678), with four days off a month. They are also paid extra for working on days off.

Malaysia used to be at the bottom of the table when it came to paying Indonesian maids, but the Jakarta government banned its maids from working there last year after a rise in alleged cases of abuse. Maids in the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Middle East still receive S$350, or less, but the employers absorb all recruitment costs, unlike in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Also, typically, better-off Middle Eastern households employ a few maids each, so the individual workload is lighter.

While Singapore employers generally pay less than those in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the eligibility criteria are the highest.

A worker has to be at least 23 years old and have at least eight years' education to come here. Taiwan and Hong Kong only require domestic workers to be 21 or over. There are no official education criteria, though maids generally have at least primary-level education.

Nurfaizi Suwandi, chairman of Apjati, the Indonesian Manpower Services Association, says: "Twenty-three-year-olds might find it hard to want to work in Singapore for S$380 or S$400, when 21-year-olds are getting close to S$700 in Taiwan."

The body has 330 members, making it Indonesia's largest association for employment agencies.

"The 19- and 20-year-olds who want to come and work in Singapore don't stand a chance."

A few years ago, domestic workers fresh from their villages initially went to Malaysia or Singapore to gain experience, before moving on to higher-paid jobs elsewhere. As Singapore provided an important training ground, it seemed fair that maids were paid less, say agents.

For instance, when Titin Kartini, 26, the eldest of three children of penniless West Java farmers, decided to work overseas a decade ago, she chose Singapore. She earned S$230 a month and worked for a family with three young children.

She had no days off and was not allowed to go out on her own, but she did not mind. "I just focused on learning how to cook and clean, and I also picked up Mandarin," she says. "All I wanted was to move to Hong Kong."

She did so in 2004, and worked there until 2008 for around S$600 a month.

Titin has spent the past three years teaching English at a village school, but is now keen to be off again, this time to Taiwan. "I have always had good employers, but I really want to earn more," says the articulate and confident woman, who can cook for up to 30 people at a time.

Taiwan is attractive not just for the $700 salary.

Unlike in Hong Kong, where she says she was forced to take four days off a month by law - and in doing so spending precious money - she says Taiwan allows her to work on her days off.

By working three Sundays a month, she can earn an additional $70, she calculates.

Opportunities elsewhere
But experienced workers like Titin are not the only ones flocking to Taiwan and Hong Kong these days, says Charles Butar Butar, who heads SEP. Increasingly, even Indonesians with limited or no experience also prefer to start out there.

His agency now supplies around 120 maids to Taiwan and 100 to Hong Kong every month, up from around 80 and 50, respectively, five years ago. There has been a corresponding decrease in supply to Singapore, with only 20 or so of his maids headed here, down from 100 five years ago.

Said Butar Butar: "The Indonesians are increasingly seen to be more obedient and willing to fit into the Chinese culture. And Taiwan and Hong Kong employers don't mind if they have little or no experience."

The Singapore market is getting hit by another factor as well - a depleting supply of Filipino domestic workers, who have long been the Indonesians' rivals in the region.

"For some reason, Filipinas are not coming in the numbers they used to be," says the agency boss. "Indonesians are taking their place."

Filipino maids are increasingly turning down Singapore jobs unless they are paid a Philippine government-stipulated minimum salary of US$400 ($506). This has led to a surge in demand for Indonesians here.

The Philippine Embassy in Singapore confirms that the supply of Filipina domestic workers in the region has been falling in recent years.

More of them prefer to work as retail assistants and factory workers, or go further afield for higher-paying jobs as domestic workers in Canada, Spain and Italy or factory workers in Taiwan, its labor attache Rodolfo Sabulao told The Straits Times.

Indonesians, too, are navigating hitherto unexplored fields, points out Nurfaizi. They are finding jobs on cruise ships in the United States and Europe, and - through a government-to-government program - as health-care workers in Japan.

Even bribes do not work

In a region flush with opportunity, it is small wonder then that many young women in Indonesian villages are reluctant to come to Singapore.

After failing to convince Kesih, Sukarma, the village recruiter, drops in on Zubaidah Nono Suoyana, 27, a former factory worker now planning to work overseas as a maid.

Zubaidah has two young children, including a month-old son, and her husband's pay as an odd-job laborer is not enough for the family. She says she heard on the radio that girls willing to go to Singapore stand to gain an advance payment of 4 million rupiah.

As she has no experience as a maid - a stint in Saudi Arabia was aborted last year when her employer sent her home within a month - Zubaidah initially agrees to work for anything above $350 a month.

But the moment she learns that she might have to live on only $20 a month - or possibly even $10 - for up to nine months while she pays off the recruitment costs, she lets out a small shriek. "I won't even be able to breathe on that money. No way I could survive."

She says her Saudi employer's wife sent her back because she believed her husband was paying her too much attention.

"In Saudi Arabia, there were no deductions," she says. "How do maids survive in Singapore for so long with so little money?"

As he leaves her home, Sukarma claims that he increasingly has to pay maids and their families up to 5 million rupiah to coax them to even consider Singapore.

Recruiters emphasize that the supply of maids from Indonesia has not dried up. But there is a definite crunch in the supply of quality maids.

Says recruitment agent Rudy Hart: "There will always be some who want to go, but their quality is in question." He knows of women who take the "ang pow" money and come to Singapore, only to find that the work is too hard for them. "They then run away and return home," he says. "The agents try to chase them for refunds, but often they don't get any."

Dreaded English test
Singapore's supply is further depleted by the exacting entrance requirements, say Indonesian agents. In April 2005, Singapore introduced a compulsory test in English for all maids that radically changed the game, says Butar Butar.

With better-educated women generally gunning for higher-paying jobs in Hong Kong and Taiwan or other professions elsewhere - and Malaysia out of bounds due to the Indonesian government ban - Singapore is increasingly becoming the place for those who cannot really go anywhere else.

Even if they have completed the mandatory eight years of schooling that Singapore requires, they hardly know any English, points out Antony Rais, who teaches English at Sumber Kencana Sejahtera, a large employment agency on the outskirts of Jakarta.

Although statistics from Singapore's Ministry of Manpower show that nearly 95 per cent of all domestic workers pass the test, Indonesian agents say the number for Indonesians is lower.

Says Mr Hart: "The 95 per cent includes Filipinos, who probably find the test easy." In his agency, which supplies around 50 girls to Singapore every month, about a third fail the test.

In Butar Butar's agency, the pass rate sometimes falls even lower. "Just last week, I sent nine girls to Singapore and six returned after failing the test," he says.

One sultry afternoon earlier this month,  Antony coached a class of 40.

The women prepare for the class by memorizing the answers to 400 questions similar to those found in the Singapore test, with a Bahasa-English dictionary at their side.

The questions are framed in such a way that the women learn not only the basics of English, but also information directly relevant to their work as domestic workers. They also learn about their rights.

"Where in Singapore can you work?" asks Mr Antony, first in English and then in Bahasa. "Only in my employer's house," choruses the class, picking the correct answer from the list of four options.

Later, they learn what a "three-in-one" coffee mix is, how Indonesian helpers should be given at least one day off a month when they work in Singapore and how they can call their agent, embassy or a hotline run by the Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore) if they are not paid.

But learning by rote in a group setting is not always effective. As the class progresses, some play with their pencils or stare at the corridor outside, lost in thought.

Tough employers
While novices are eager to work in Singapore, some returnees are reluctant to go back.

Many narrate stories of how Singaporeans can be tough employers, unlike those in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many rue what they call their lack of freedom.

From June 2009, when Siti Nurjanah Surjono left Jakarta to go to Singapore to work, till October last year, her parents did not hear from her even once.

Then, on Hari Raya last year, she called her mother. "It was like she came back from the dead," recounts her mother, Julekha Sutana, 45.

Nurjanah, 24, claims that from the time she began working for a family of five adults in Jurong, she was not allowed to leave her employer's home on her own, or even to make a phone call. Her primary duty was to look after the ailing matriarch of the family. She also claims that both she and the elderly woman were not given enough to eat.

Shortly after her first phone call home - 16 months later - the elderly woman died. Nurjanah was returned to the agency and asked to be sent back home.

Meanwhile, her sister Marfuah Surjono, 27, spent eight years working for two families in Hong Kong without incident. She was given enough food, had regular days off and the keys to the house. "My employers even took me to Ocean Park," she beams, referring to a theme park.

Marfuah, who now works as a Cantonese teacher to trainee maids, says she frequently shares her story - and that of her sister's - with prospective maids: "They need to be informed about the risks before they can make choices."

But Singapore still retains its attraction for one group of women who would work here again in a heartbeat - maids who have had fair employers and enjoyed their stints in the Lion City.

Siti Sopiah, 28, a farmer's wife with a one-year-old son worked for the same Bukit Timah family - a married couple, their son and the child's elderly grandmother - for seven years.

She said her employers were concerned about her well-being, frequently asking her if she was happy. They also bought her clothes and gave her generous ang pows during Chinese New Year.

When she left - she says she wanted to "take a rest and get married" - they gave her four gold chains. "All my time there, I only received kindness," she says. "And I tried to pay it back by working hard."

She is now training to return to Singapore. "It's clean, safe and the people are kind," she adds.

The best part, she says, is that her agency is negotiating a salary of at least S$450. "I am really looking forward to going back."

Source: The Jakarta Globe - March 27, 2011

The Maid - Unholy Acts In The Holiest Place (10)

Runaway Maids Eating Into Family Budgets  
By RIMA AL-MUKHTAR 

JEDDAH: There are many reports of housemaids being abused or beaten, and occasionally even murdered. However, there is another side to the story.
The large number of housemaids running away from their employers is causing untold problems, including social embarrassments and additional financial burdens for many Saudi families.
“It costs a lot to recruit a housemaid, with fees that go up to SR15,000. This includes recruitment fees, plane ticket and visa,” said Abu Faisal, a recruitment office manager in Jeddah. “If the maid runs away, the employer loses all the money he spent hiring her.”
Maids run away for several reasons, but they are mostly greedy and search for jobs in other households to make more money, according to Abu Faisal.
“Many maids run away from their sponsors as soon as they land in the Kingdom, knowing that they will find a job no matter what, for people are always looking for maids,” he said.
“They know this and plan to run away before even arriving here. Sometimes they arrange it with their friends to guarantee them a better salary,” he added.
“They just need someone to recruit them and pay for their visa and ticket, and once they are here they start looking for jobs with better wages,” said Abu Faisal.
Runaway maids accuse their previous employers of abuse and mistreatment. “My Indonesian maid once told me that her friend was looking for work. I asked her to bring her by so that I could hire her to work for me. Once she came I asked about her previous job and why she left, and that’s when she said that her sponsor used to deprive her of food and did not pay her for her work,” said Moneera Al-Qahtani, housewife and mother.
“When she told me the name of her sponsor I knew she was lying, because it turned out to be my cousin, and later I found out that she worked for him for only two days before she ran away,” Al-Qahtani added.
Frustrated employers are no longer recruiting from outside the Kingdom, but look for help from within.  “I will no longer pay so much money, knowing that my maid might run away and cost me even more. For years now I have been asking my friends and family to bring me maids. I don’t care if they are illegal or don’t have iqama, I only care that my house is clean and my maid does not cost me more than SR1,000 a month,” said Nahed Ibraheem, a working woman.
“I have bad experiences with maids running away even if they are treated like my own daughters. I don’t know why they have the urge to leave suddenly, even when I tell them that I would never hold them if they wanted to go. They just have to tell me in advance so I can arrange for another one,” she added.
At least some employers see maids as a threat to their safety and private life.
“Everyone in the Kingdom looks at us as if we are spoiled and vulgar, for they think our maids are running away because we abuse them and do not provide them with food. They don’t want to admit that we are the people who are suffering, because we are letting complete strangers inside our houses to look into our drawers,” said Kholoud Badr, a high school teacher.
“After years I found out that my maid was a part time prostitute, offering her services to drivers in our neighborhood. This freaked me out because I have two young daughters, and it’s not safe for them to stay at home alone. My question is this: How can you make sure that your maid is not a psychopath or a murderer? We don’t think about these things; we only care about the service,” she added.
Police only arrest maids who are accused of a crime, not runaways, said First Lt. Nawaf Al-Bouq, spokesman for Jeddah police.
“According to the regulations, policemen are not allowed to get involved in the search of maids who run away from their sponsors. We only interfere when the employer accuses his maid of robbery or any criminal act,” he said. “We then liaise with the Passport Department to join forces and search for the suspect.”
All attempts to get a response from the Passport Department failed.

Source: Arab News - April 22, 2011

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Some maids run away because they miss their children after minding their employers' kids.

Not to deter runaway maids, personal bond among employers and employees need to to be cultivated.

It was said that no less than 50 housemaids abandon their Saudi employers every month.

Some maids, coming from remote places, were not train to work, thus were unable to operate electrical appliances.

They are unable to perform basic jobs like handling electrical appliances and so make mistakes, something that angers their employers resulting in beatings and torture.

The housemaids then either run away or the sponsor tries to get rid of them.

Most of these women who are from the rural areas, they do not know how to use modern gadgets.

Breaking or mishandling them will be rewarded with scoldings and beatings by their employers.

More domestic workers are expected to run away from their employers before and after the month of Ramadhan.

The big workload during the Ramadhan season drives many of these maids to leave their employment.

Work period starts from dawn to past midnight until the following morning.

Although it is not only illegal, but also a violation of human rights, many Saudi families loan their housemaids and other household helps, to extended members of their families during Ramadan.

This is an encouraged reason for the runaway.

Those with great intention to run away during Ramadhan but was unable to, will do so after the season.

Some housemaids run away due to unpaid wages or delay in salaries.

Thus it adds up to losing situation that claims Saudi families lose more than SR500 million a year because of these domestic workers who run away.

Runaway maids had become a phenomenon.

But those maids who came to the country on maid visas specifically to elope with their suitors, led to much to much chagrin to their employers who had paid much money to process the paperwork to get the maid to the Kingdom.

A maid who had worked for four years in Saudi Arabia told Me of her friend who was enticed by a family driver to abandon her employer, only to have herself rape and kept by this driver, without the employer knew of her whereabout.

She was kept in an isolated place, with all contacts cutoff.

Lately, there are reports of Saudi police busting prostitution ring involving Asian housemaids who fled from their employers.

Some runaway maids were then recruited by agencies that are accredited by the Saudi government, and some others were outsourced into the black labour market.

Some were offered an alternative family, but were charged commission.

Both employers and employees were charged fees. 

Read On...

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From Frying Pan To Fire Runaway Maids End Up In Harsher Conditions

JEDDAH: Housemaids who flee their sponsors due to bad working conditions to seek work in the black labor market often end up in a situation of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
In many cases they find themselves at the mercy of sleazy labor brokers who send them to work illegally in conditions that are little different from the legal situations, and often much worse. 
“They seize our IDs, lock us up in secluded rooms and make us live in very difficult conditions, which is no less than indentured servitude,” a maid told Arab News on condition she not be named.
Nuriyyah, an Indonesian maid who has been working for two years in Saudi Arabia, describes the situation she found herself in as “slavery” after being legally recruited and brought to the Kingdom. The wage she ended up receiving was not enough to feed her family back home.
“My sponsor often delayed my payment under the pretext that he had other pressing commitments,” she said. “I had no other choice but to flee.”
Nuriyyah said she lived in a small apartment after her escape with a large number of illegal housemaids who came for Haj or Umrah and overstayed their pilgrimage visas.  She said the man who ran the house essentially acted as an illegal-labor broker.
But what Nuriyyah discovered is that people who hire maids illegally often end up being worse than employers who seek workers through legal channels and at greater expense.  “The new employer and his wife used to beat and humiliate me all the time,” she said. “They also took my iqama. I served them for my food only.”
The maid says she has never been paid for her work. Eventually she fled her illegal employers. She ended up under the Sitteen Bridge, a congregation point for foreign laborers who have fled their sponsors in the hope they will be picked up by the police and deported.
Another Indonesian maid, who did not want to be named, said though she had been an adventurer all her life and would work hard to earn money, she had fears that she might fall victim to inhuman practices on the hands of her new employers.
“I now live in a small house with a large number of illegal African and Asian housemaids,” she said. “The brokers who distribute us among their customers do not care much for what will happen to us. They are only after money.”
She added that she was living in very difficult conditions in this house but her need for money would force her to continue.
The unidentified Indonesian housemaid said she witnessed her co-workers being beaten by merciless employers who know that illegal domestic servants are essentially hostages with few choices.
“Many housemaids had similar experiences but were finally able to make some money and go back home. In order to succeed, you have to take chances,” she said.
Commenting on the issue, spokesman for Jeddah police Col. Misfer Al-Juaid said many of the houses that accommodate runaway maids are found in the districts of Al-Bawadi, Ghulail and Kandara.
“We carry out weekly raids on such houses after identifying them,” he said. “We arrest the illegal residents, take their fingerprints before handing them over to the Passport Department for deportation.”
After these workers end up in the custody of Saudi immigration authorities, a long process for exit clearance takes place. Often these workers have no ID because their passports are with the employers from whom they fled. Saudi authorities must work with foreign missions to establish identities and check for criminal backgrounds before they can be sent home. 
Al-Juaid pointed out that an illegal worker can be exposed to more abuse than legal workers, because sponsors are aware that there is little recourse for reporting or challenging abusive situations. “The illegal housemaids bear all these inhuman treatment in order not to be caught by the passport police and sent back home,” he added.
The most common form of maid abuse is not paying salaries, followed by physical and sexual abuse. The Saudi authorities do not offer statistics of the number of abuse cases reported to them, but the problem is acute enough that labor rights activists and foreign missions – especially of Indonesia and the Philippines – maintain shelters for fleeing maids, especially women.
Supervisor of the National Society for Human Rights in Makkah province Hussain Al-Sharif described violence against housemaids as inhuman and un-Islamic.
“Just because they are paying them money, some employers will come to believe that they literally own their housemaids and they have the right to ask them to do anything,” he said.
Al-Sharif agreed with Al-Juaid, saying that illegal workers face a greater chance of being abused with impunity.
“Violence against housemaids, whether they are legal or illegal stayers, is inhuman and totally against Islam,” he added. “We completely reject such practices and deplore exploitation of any human being.”
Al-Sharif asked all employers to consider the pressing conditions that drove the housemaids to come all they way from their countries in the first place. The main reason is remittances, the money they can save up to send home to feed their children or other family members. Not paying a maid could mean a child back home goes without food, clothing or medicines.

Source: A1 Saudi Arabia - January 12, 2011

The Maid - Tears Welling Up In Their Eyes

Family Enjoys Meal In Cafe, But Tells Maid To Stand At One Side

There were still seats available in the cafe, but a family apparently did not allow their maid to sit with them. Instead, she stood in a corner, said STOMPer benji.

The STOMPer tells us more (Apr 16):

"I spotted this family at Marina Square, in the cafe Bao Today.

"They apparently asked the maid to stand at one side.

"Maid abuse?

"Initially I noticed a figure standing behind me after the family came in.

"The family noticed that I took pictures of them, so they asked her to sit down. But she was still left at the corner.

"I approached her to offer her a drink but she just shook her head. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

"She said she was part of that family.

"She looked like she was quite new.

"The family finished their food and left, but their maid did not eat a single bite."



Source: Singapore Seen. Stomp - April 16, 2011
 

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After a month Nora* came into the family, she was paid only S$20 for her salary.

Her salary will still be S$20 for the next two months.
(She had worked 4 months for a previous family which I had blogged earlier).

After the seventh month, it will be S$400 or S$450?.
I need to check with My Brother.

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Prior to working in Singapore, Nora was in Saudi Arabia, working for a family staying in Abha, Madinah for four years.
If the family did not intend to move to their 3-storey house, she would have stayed back.

Although she did not like the chilly Madinah weather (she said to take lots of paracetamol over there - constant headache due to cold), working for the family was easy.
Just needed to be around the four children when both parents were in school.
She just needed to be home all the time.

The family treated her with kindness.
She was part of the family too.
Her employer bought her, his four children's minder, the same thing whenever he bought his wife, the children's mother, gifts.

The husband did the marketing, and cooking was easy too.
Lots of salads and marinating mutton before meals.

She is lucky, she said.
The family she was with, had rice daily, unlike the family staying one floor below, they had bread for meals.
She pity her friend from Lombok, who worked there.
Being Indonesians, they live on rice.
So, her friend was getting skinnier as time passed by, as she had rice sparingly, although she had free access to food all her time.

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Nora did not intend to leave home if things turned out as planned.

But that's GOD Will. 

With the 5.5 million rupiah the employer helped to sent home every three months from Saudi Arabia for 4 years, her mother bought a piece of land for them to start chilli plantation.

But weather had been erratic all over the world.

When the chilli plants started flowering, rain started to fall, never seem to end.

June is not a rainy season.

But it was, last year.

The soaked-in-rainwater chilli plants bore no chillies.

The investment had failed.

Her three children need money to go to school.

Her aged mother, in her 60s, resorted to selling other farmers' vegetables, on commission basis.

Meanwhile, her bedridden father, due to motorcycle accident, left to fend for himself.

There was absolutely no money to send him for therapy. 

During Ramadhan, when others were preparing for Eidul Fitr, Nora prepared to leave her children, yet again.

During Eidul Fitr, when families visit others, she was in Batam, all-ready to come to Singapore, but not until two months later...

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Nora followed Me to City Plaza last week.

Tears were welling up in her eyes when I mentioned to her, I had some 'zakat' for her to send home.
More tears were welling up in her eyes, as she topped up another S$50, her salary and gifts from others, for the money to be sent home.

It is not 5.5 million rupiah she used to send home from Saudi Arabia, not even one million rupiah.

But it is the first sent home money from Singapore, seven months after she left Surabaya, Indonesia...       

The Maid - Squeezing Dry The Employers (3)

MTUC: Cut Maid Agency Fees Instead

PETALING JAYA, Aug 9 — Instead of the salary of Indonesian maids, the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) wants the government to negotiate and reduce the cost of their recruitment.
MTUC vice-president A. Balasubramaniam said currently, maids were unduly burdened with extra cost which they had to pay to recruiting agents.
According to him, before the Indonesian government imposed the ban on its maids a year ago, the recruiting fee was in the region of RM8,000 each.
Part of the money was deducted by the employers via the maid’s salary, which meant that they (maids) had to work for six months without pay.
“This system is most unfair to the maids as it is akin to forced labour,” he told Bernama today.
Balasubramaniam was commenting on a statement by Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam that the Indonesian government’s demand for RM800 minimum wage for maids could not be implemented as Malaysia did not have a minimum wage structure.
He said this was one of the main reasons why the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Malaysia and Indonesia could not be implemented.
On the RM800 salary, Balasubramaniam said a survey conducted by MTUC early this year showed that some employers were willing to pay RM800 per month to Indonesian maids, provided the agency fees were reduced.
He said the survey also revealed employers were willing to pay higher salaries to the maids  instead of higher fees to the agents. As an alternative, he said the government should take steps to reduce the dependence of maids among Malaysian households.
This could be done by providing crèches and child centres so that working mothers could leave their children in safe environment, he said, adding that the private sector could also assist the government by setting up their own centres for employees. — Bernama

Source: The Malaysian Insider - August 9, 2010

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No Standard Rate For Maid Agency Charges
DARSHINI KANDASAMY

RENU is confused over the rates a manpower supply agency can charge to provide one with a foreign maid.
She has been a housewife the past three years and having decided to return to work, she is now sourcing for a maid.
“I have a rambunctious two-year-old son to care for, and need someone to handle the household chores while I am at work,” she said.
She and her husband have gone to various maid agencies in Kuala Lumpur and each quoted different rates, from RM6,000 to as high as RM8,000 for the service,” RENU said.
She wants to know if there is a standard fee for someone seeking to hire a foreign maid.
“Is there a standard rate? Or, are some agencies already increasing their rates because Indonesia has demanded that the maid’s salary be RM800 a month?” she asked.
Some of the agencies said they could get her an Indonesian maid, but RENU added: “I am under the impression that the intake of Indonesians maids has been frozen. Am I being deceived?”
She hopes the matter can be clarified so that she and her husband would not be taken for a ride.
● MALAYSIAN Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) vice-president (1) Jeffrey Foo said the freeze on the intake of Indonesian maids is still in effect.
“The freeze affects all Indonesians whose passports are dated after June 26, 2009. Those with passports issued after this date are not allowed to work in Malaysia.”
There would be no problem if an agency brings in a maid whose passport is dated before June 26, Foo said.
As for the cost to bring in a domestic helper, he said it would be based on the market rate in the country and therefore there was no fixed amount. RENU should check with several agencies
for the best rate and service.
The cost also depended on other factors, Foo said, such as the maid’s experience, where she comes from and her training.
He added that the minimum monthly salary of RM800 for Indonesian maids was only a suggestion by the Indonesian government and “nothing has been confirmed”.

Source: Malay Mail - Tuesday, September 8, 2009
 

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Complaint Of Maid Agency

Posted by: behfern 

This is regarding complaint against a fraud maid service agency.
I, beh fern fern , and my husband, john teo, register for maid on april 09 . Since I am 5 months pregnant on april, I was looking for a full time maid and contacted above mentioned agency on 23rd April ’09. One, ms sheila told me that their agency has a full time maid named
Mrs. maria aged 36 years. All process were done and fees were paid on april and pending for maid arrival on july which is promised by the
agent. However, maid named maria were unable to make it due to her last minute medical check up on jul and agency did not update us until
we contact the agent to check up the status on end july.  The agency also promised for replacement of the maid in case the same is not
suitable to us due to medical failure which they promised maid will come on 15 aug. This second promise were broken again where agent claim
the process is tedious and facing visa problem , but all this process status were not updated to us again until i called up on 16th aug
2009 again to ask about the condition. After long argument over the phone, agency wrote an email to promise they will ensure the maid come
onm 5.9.2009 and finally arrive to my house on 8 sept 2009.
In a week’s of 8 sept 2009, When we asked sheila for maid status, she started avoiding us, either not picking us his cell phone or keeping
on switched-off mode. When contacted on landline, he asked us to talk to some other person. Sometimes, when we called, she said she is in
meeting. 
we are totally and absolutely frustrated and dissapointed over this agency where it used to be claim as the best maid agency in malaysia
from their own website. i sincerely urge all resident who wish to hire maid , please do not attempt to approach this agency to avoid from
huge hassle in future. thank you.

Source: The Star - Tuesday. September 8, 2009

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Maid Agencies Fees Are ‘Exploitative’

The Malaysia maid agencies appears to be deeply immune to the Malaysian government's instruction to reduce the maid agency fees to RM2,415.

We, Migrant Care, one the most active Jakarta-based migrant workers non-government organisations, presents the breakdown of the cost incurred by the Indonesian maid.

The demand for the RM5,000 to RM6,000 fees is way too high as the cost of hiring a maid, including the profit for the Indonesian agent, is only about RM2,000.

The ceiling price set by the Malaysia government at RM2,415 is actually very reasonable, something that will allow the Malaysian agent to enjoy about 25 percent profit for their recruitment service.

The demand for a fee of between RM5,000 and RM6,000 is a reflection of abusive and exploitative nature of maid agencies in Malaysia, an industry ranked by Transparency International as the second most corrupt.

The maid agencies are enjoying a hefty RM3,000 to RM4,000 profit per maid placement.

The reasons given by Deputy Home Minister Tan Chai Ho about the low salary in Malaysia being acceptable because maids in Hong Kong are paid HK$3,740 (RM1,681) per month as compare to Malaysia’s market rate of RM400 to RM500 per month. However, the maids bound for Hong Kong are better trained as compared to the maids sent to Malaysia.

There is a very prominent ISO 9001 maid agency in Kuala Lumpur’s Old Klang Road, which has even openly advertised that their Muslim maids are willing to handle pork and bathe dogs. We question how the industry standard certification company could award the agency which openly breach the guidelines set forth by the Malaysia foreign labour task force?

There is not proper laws to regulate the human exploitation in Malaysia - it’s open doors for Malaysia’s maid agencies to exploit both employers and foreign workers. The cartel even openly threatens the Malaysian Employers Federation by delaying the approval of visa renewal that could cost the economy more than RM220 million in lost productivity.

The author is coordinator of Migrant Care.

Source: Malaysiakini - March 15, 2007 

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Foreign Maid Dilemma

Posted by: mysticmonk70
 

She eventually did it. I just could not digest the fact she left our house opened, the gate, main door unlocked. I just heard a motorcycle screaming away. I took my car and tried to go after whomever that was speeding away. I panicked, went around and around. Could not find her. She did what she has told me and I could not do anything.

Few weeks ago, my maid told me that she wants to go back home because all her letters posted to her husband is not replied. She is worried of her kids and husband. My wife contacted our foreign maid agent and told her of this scenario, Ms DDDD, the manager of Malacca branch told us about the contract that the maid cannot leave for the duration of her employment and promised to visit to explain to the maid. If only I could count the number of promises of the visit she promised and convert it to dollars and cents, I can afford to hire 10 maids. During the employment of the first maid, I was promised the heaven and an angel maid. My maid, the angel came with a hope that she was going to take care of an elderly lady only but alas when she arrived and sat down on my couch, I could sense her disappointment and resentment.

After a month, she began to act a bit weird. Her first act was leaving my last son, a 2 year old boy at home alone for hours while sending my second son to child care about 2 houses away. On her way she will have hourly chat with all other Indonesian friend around the vicinity of the housing area. She also an angel in distress, as she used to give away our food storage such as Maggie Mees, Instant coffee sachets, soaps and daily groceries such as vegetables for favors such as posting letters and getting other food in exchange.

Called the manager in the agency and all she could say is “OK”, “Talk to her and I will visit her end of the week”. Maybe it is my mistake not to ask her which week is she talking about. She never turned up. Eventually about 6 months later, the maid came to me and told me she wants to go back to the agent. I took her to the agent, left her there and told my agent to sort my problem out. She now tells me I need to fork out another RM2,500 for a transfer. One thing about me is that I want to do everything legal and in accordance to Malaysian Law. I paid the amount and got a maid who was a chatterbox unlike the previous one. The first day she turned up via taxi from KL, instead of us telling her her duties, she told us , her regulations and expectations. She will not cook, She will only take care of kids. She will not send my second son to the day care centre and she will sleep at 8.30pm with my daughter so that she can wake up at 6.00am to prepare my daughter to school. Having no choice and afraid of “losing” my investment, I agreed and went on with life until that day”. It was also just after a few weeks after renewing her permit and visa for employment. Within less than 2 years I have spent a total of RM16,800 for 2 maids, RM2,500 for replacement in addition to that a further RM760 for renewal of permit, visa and Fomema.

To my surprise, my collegue came to me and told me her maid also ran away. What was ironic is that her maid is also from the same agency. After sourcing around for proof, there were about 4 other also have lost their maid within that month. My drilling mind suddenly tells me that this could probably be a scam. A scam so perfectly planned that they would look like they ran way, brought across to another state and put to work swith a cleaning service, restaurant and other industry which will pay them more. Of course these “employees” will take them to work without any entrance fee or reduced entrance fee as we have paid all of those. Coincidentally, every maid who leaves or run away will do so after the 3^rd month (guarantee period)

As much as I am a sore loser, I do not want this to happen to any other person. Hard earned money goes to the agent who may be involved in this scam and enjoy the double profit that they have gained. What I am proposing here to the government is while negotiating with a country which labels us cruel employee is that there should be a fair bilateral agreement which also covers employee in Malaysia that if they (the maid) run away, the should be lawfully prosecuted and the employee compensated for the hard-ship likewise an employee lawfully prosecuted for abusing a maid. Also with the advanced technology that is available today, we can have each maid coming in with their finger-print scanned so that they (the maid) can’t go back to their country , change identity and come back as a different name to Malaysia. Every maid agency should be directly registered under the lawful government agency and be monitored. There should be a standard draft agreement and a standard maximum fee proposed by the government for recruiting a foreign maid so that the cost of recruitment is not determined by agencies but rather by the government with strings attached. The also should be a guarantee amount being kept by the government agency via the agent for every maid so that when they run away or abscond, these “deposit” will be given to the employee as a compensation.

Now I am suffering because my maid ran away and my cost of taking care of my children have increased because I am sending them to a day care centre all day long. What have the agent and the government agency to say to me to console me in this time of crisis. “Nothing” and absolutely nothing. We are the losers…….

Source: The Star - Thursday, February 25, 2010