It’s more than just pain when maids get abusive

WHAT can draw exclamations of fear and make one's hair stand on end? Croaking long-haired female ghosts and cyborg killing machines in celluloid blockbusters? The shenanigans of our elected representatives in Parliament? The performance of the Malaysian football team?

By Chok Suat Ling

Whatever their shock value, none can make the people recoil in horror quite as effectively as stories about the hired help.

Maids running away and leaving the baby unfed and wailing? Maids having trysts with their boyfriends in the master bedroom? Stealing jewellery and other valuables? Adding unsavoury ingredients into dishes they prepare for dinner? Hitting the children? An armed duel with the maid next door?

Some of this may have happened to a friend of an aunt or the neighbour of a colleague, but these are not exaggerated flights of fancy or the stuff of urban legend.

Many Malaysian households have experienced all this and more. Rarely is an employer fortunate enough to have the same maid for longer than a few months, or be completely satisfied with her expertise, skills and deportment.

Some have gone through several domestic helpers, while others have gone totally off them, preferring instead to send their children to day-care centres or offload them on hapless relatives. They'd rather get someone to come in once a week to do the housework, or even do the scrubbing and cleaning themselves, rather than rely on a domestic worker. They figure it is better than being pushed to the brink of exhaustion, if not psychosis.

They have heard how some people fork out their hard-earned money, up to RM7,000 or more, only to be tormented, bullied, bloodied, strangled and stabbed by their maids.

Hanni Seo, from Kupang in western Timor, was charged in March with attempted murder. She had allegedly tried to kill her employer, Phang Kian Huang, with a wooden chair, pestle, and kitchen knife.

In November last year, a 16-year-old Indonesian maid stabbed her employer's mother to death at Taman Perumahan Karang Maju, Kuantan.

In 2006, Lee Shok Chu of Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam had to be rushed to the hospital in critical condition after being stabbed by her maid while playing mahjong.

Yeoh Choo Seong of Taman Kempas, Sungai Petani was another employer stabbed in the gut by his maid.

If the maid runs away for whatever reason — most times through no fault of the employer — then it is money out of the pocket again for a replacement.

Ironically, while many employers have to tolerate all manner of indignity and iniquity at the hands of their maids and the agencies supplying them, no activist sees fit to come to their defence. However, much ado is always made over the rights of domestic helpers, especially pursuant to cases of maid abuse.

The most recent involved Indonesian maid Siti Hajar, who alleged that she was tortured by her employer over the past three years. This not only led to a heartfelt outcry and plea for justice but resulted in Malaysia and Malaysians being vilified by the media in Indonesia — as was also the case when Nirmala Bonat, Ruminah Atem and Kusiah Manijan made the news.

Indonesia even threatened to temporarily stop sending domestic workers to Malaysia. It was not the first time it had done so, and will not be the last.

There have also been calls for better pay and working conditions for foreign maids. The Malaysian government is considering giving all maids one day off a week. Maids from the Philippines already enjoy this, as it was provided for in an agreement with their government.

Sure, let them take that day off to do whatever they need to do — peddle their wares, gossip and mingle with fellow Indonesians already here legally and illegally, make friends and boyfriends, seek husbands, and be influenced by how much better and easier life is "out there" in restaurants and construction sites.

While maids certainly ought not to be treated like chattel or slaves, it appears that everyone is bending over backwards to help the help, with little done to protect those who employ them. Besides fuming, seething, and lodging a police report, what can an employer do when a maid is abusive or runs away?

What is an employer to do when the maid is diagnosed with tuberculosis or a sexually-transmitted disease after passing the compulsory medical examination? They can fork out a further RM7,000 to get a replacement, and another RM635 for the levy and medical check-up, that's what.

It's enough to make anyone tear out their hair in frustration and rage, especially if it happens repeatedly.

What can employers do against agencies that falsify the details of maids, or claim that the workers are properly trained when they cannot tell the difference between a microwave oven and washing machine? Nothing much, except create a scene outside their office.

For sure, there are sadistic employers in need of psychiatric help or incarceration. But they are the exceptions rather than the norm. Many, if not most, treat their maids as they would a cherished member of the family.

Do not punish all for the misdeeds of a few. As the Malay saying goes: "Jangan disebabkan nyamuk seekor, habis kelambu dibakar."