Indonesia threat to cut maid supply

KUALA LUMPUR: Indonesia has threatened to temporarily stop providing domestic help to Malaysia.
Indonesian ministers, its national police chief, and the Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia are expected to hold a meeting with Malaysian representatives on Monday for a preliminary evaluation.
The threat comes after the report two weeks ago of Siti Hajar, the Indonesian maid who was allegedly scalded with hot water by her employer, for whom she had been working since 2006.
“There are proposals to consider to stop sending maids to Malaysia for a few months, to review and improve the system and discuss problems faced by maids such as abuse and unpaid salary,” said Indonesian Embassy labour attache Teguh Hendro Cahyono.
“We understand that Malaysia is not the only country (with maid abuse cases). There are also a lot of cases in Saudi Arabia. In Singapore, there have been instances of maids jumping off buildings.”
Teguh said Malaysia was considered the last option for Indonesian domestic helpers due to the low pay and abuse cases.
While Hong Kong and Taiwan pay a maid between RM1,300 and RM1,600 per month, and Saudi Arabia and Singapore offer between RM800 and RM900, Indonesian maids who work here are paid a minimum monthly wage of RM600, he said.
Asked about the general view that Indonesian maids were the most problematic — with a high number of runaway cases — compared to maids from other countries, Teguh said that was a stigma on their domestic help.
“This is a prejudice towards them, which jeopardises the relationship between employers and maids. The employers generally perceive the maids as untrustworthy — that they would run away whenever they have the chance to.
“Hence, they would try to restrict their freedom such as by keeping their passport.”
Likewise, he said the maids felt that the employers were mean.
“Most of the maids who run away do so because they are not paid or because they suffer abuse at the hands of their employer, or that they don’t get any rest at all,” he said.
Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) president Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahalan estimated that 7,000 employers would be affected if Indonesia stops sending maids to Malaysia.
In Malacca, Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr. S. Subramaniam said the opposition towards the Government’s proposal to make it compulsory for employers to give their foreign maids a day-off from work each week was not surprising.
“Although they know that they should give the day-off, they have their own view that there would be negative effects following the decision,” he told reporters after attending a meet-the-client session at Wisma Perkeso in Ayer Keroh yesterday.
He was asked to comment on the result of a SMS poll carried out by The Star on the proposal where 76.1% of the 769 respondents indicated their disapproval with only 23.9% agreeing to the idea.

tunku : the government should allow maids to come from other poor countries.we should not rely on indonesia.if indonesia threat us to stop sending the maid, we too should stop taking indonesian labour.see who suffers more.indonesia should behave, they can't threat us all the time, we need to threat them back.by right this thing should be discuss in proper manner not by threating.there are more bad maids than good maids from indonesia but we are not complaining.