Day off for maids? Sadly our 'money' mind is showing

The following article was published in the Straits Times on 28 Oct 2005.

Day off for maids? Sadly our 'money' mind is showing
By Lydia Lim
Straits Times, 28 October 2005

IF SOMEONE offered you a job with zero days off a month, I can bet you would recoil in horror and wonder how any employer could expect that of a worker.

And yet, that is what many of us expect of foreign maids.

A reminder of the 'special' treatment doled out to the 140,000 or so foreign domestic helpers here cropped up this week.

The cause? The news that employers would finally be required to give maids one day off a month starting next year, or compensate them in cash.

The story made me sit up. I asked myself how one day off each month could possibly be enough rest for any worker, let alone maids, many of whom are expected to put in 15-hour days.

The situation is an anomaly as Singapore's Employment Act states clearly that every employee shall be entitled to one rest day a week. And other foreign workers here, who toil in places such as factories and construction sites, do get days off.

So why are maids treated differently? And how did we as a society come to accept such inequality as a matter of course?

I would argue that a big factor is how we tend to view people in a utilitarian way. By that, I mean this society tends to judge a person by his economic usefulness and, more often than not, measures this in terms of the salary he draws.

On this scale, maids - unsurprisingly - are at the bottom of the heap.

This is not unique to Singapore, of course. Many other countries also judge a person by his earning power.

The difference is that in developed countries in the West, at least, there is an opposite point of view to act as a counterweight. The balancing force is the value these societies also place on the rights of each individual.

This is based on the belief that every person deserves to be treated as a human being, regardless of external trappings such as wealth and status. Each person has intrinsic worth simply because he is human.

In Singapore, this view does not yet seem to feature prominently in how people think or relate to each other.

And this is the source of the problem. Because the more a person is measured by his economic utility, the more he will be seen as a tool, a machine, a factor of production - in other words, a means to a measurable monetary end.

The foreign maid, in this equation, is reduced to the ultimate car-washing, floor-mopping, child-rearing, cooking and ironing machine.

And what is the rational thing to do with machines? Work them flat out, surely, for no one worries about operating equipment 24/7 unless this causes them to break down.

I was struck by the comparison one Filipino maid drew between the treatment she received here and in Ireland, where she now works.

She told The New Paper: 'Here I am treated like a real person. In Singapore, I was smaller than an ant.

'In Singapore, the children scream at me even when they just want a glass of water. Here, my employer serves me at the dinner table. She would ask me, 'Coffee or tea for you?' '

The scene she described concerned an ordinary courtesy that many would extend to someone they were dining with. Yet, it would be considered extraordinary in the Singapore context if the person at the receiving end was a maid.

This is not to say that all Singaporeans treat their maids badly. There are many who are kind but I'm not sure that even in those cases, the starting point in the dealings between Ma'am and maid is one between two equal human beings, each with her own job to do.

Sadly, a utilitarian view of people influences not just the way many of us treat foreign maids but also one another.

Consider the plight of those citizens who are viewed as less than economically dynamic: the jobless, the elderly, the stay-at-home mums.

Many of them seem to feel there is a question mark over their 'usefulness to society'.

So when it comes to the issue of rest days for maids, I agree with those who say legislation is not the answer. The problem runs deep and is best addressed through education.

There is no point passing a law to mandate days off for foreign maids when most of society do not yet recognise that this is the decent thing to do.

What you will be left with is a situation in which employers find ways and means to get around the law and maids don't dare complain because they fear losing their jobs.

It is a state of affairs that can change only over time.

What would help speed the process along is for influential members of society, including politicians and judges, to keep reminding Singaporeans that maids are human too.

Maid charged with killing elderly boss

The following article was published in TODAY on 22 Oct 2005.

Maid charged with killing elderly boss
By Ansley Ng
TODAY (Singapore), 22 October 2005

AN Indonesian maid was charged in court for the murder of her elderly female employer yesterday.

Barokah, 26, is accused of killing Madam Wee Keng Wah on Wednesday between midnight and 7.16am at Block 19 Chai Chee Road.

Mdm Wee, 75, who was found lying in a pool of blood at the foot of the block, suffered multiple injuries and was pronounced dead at 7.30am.

Her arms strapped to her sides, the stout-looking maid, who has short hair and is around 1.6m tall, displayed no emotion in the dock.

Barokah, who has not been represented by a lawyer, is the second foreign maid to be charged with murder in two months.

Last month, Filipino maid Guen Garlejo Aguilar was accused of killing fellow maid Jane Parangan La Puebla, whose body parts were discovered in two bags outside Orchard MRT station and MacRitchie Reservoir.

Mr Fachry Sulaiman, the Indonesian embassy's First Secretary for Protocol and Consular Affairs, told reporters outside court that Barokah's family in Java had been informed of the arrest.

The maid, who has been working in Singapore for about a year, is married and has a young son. She has been working for Mdm Wee for about a month.

"We will arrange for her family to come to Singapore," said Mr Fachry, adding that a lawyer had been appointed.

Barokah will return to court on Oct 27.