YOURSAY | Inhumane to work maids to the bone

 

YOURSAY | ‘No wonder Indonesia doesn’t want to send workers to M’sia’

'I cleaned condo, groomed 30 cats daily without wages for years'

Vent: Our maid wakes up at 6.30am. She takes a break from 3pm to 5pm, and switches off all the lights downstairs to retire to her room anywhere from 9.30pm to 10pm.

She gets everything done in the week with an off day every Saturday, during which we run our errands and the like, and she does her thing. So, are we angels? Certainly not!

Without appearing sanctimonious, it is quite unfathomable how a maid has to work from morning to night without a break. Is work being invented to keep her occupied? But to what avail?

And it is clearly stated that maids do not care for pets or the garden. At worst, she puts out the trash and washes the trash bin.

And it appears that the "well-heeled" ketuanan-types are the worst paymasters. It is hard for decent and law-abiding citizens to understand how these employers expect people to work without payment. That's plain modern-day slavery.

But when you are being looked after from womb to tomb and the source of your income is windfalls from freeloading and riding piggyback on others, I guess you cannot understand what it is to be gainfully employed in the first place.

It is the likes of these people and their ilk that occupy some of the highest positions in the land. A nation without a moral compass is doomed, and a people without decency and a semblance of morality and fair play are a disgraceful lot.

Citizen_Zero: Malaysia has become a ripe hotbed of abusers, especially after ex-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and his wife came to power. They are the ultimate ones, and the rest followed.

People like them have access to money and positions are given to them. They are desperate for a sense of superiority. And when that is not enough, they abuse others.

People like them look nice and exemplary on one hand and abuse others on the other. These narcissist psychopaths are everywhere now. They are liars and have no shame whatsoever, and their weakness is that people know.

Good people must always expose them and not end up being under their thrall. And they must have the guts to curse them and put them in their place.

Plebian: It's these kinds of stories that make the news. But really, the inhumane treatment of maids is not just limited to the very rich.

Many middle-class families work their maids to the bone - no days off, 5am to 10pm every day, with the maid expected to do everything from cooking to house cleaning, childminding, and even looking after elderly parents.

The Indonesian government is right not to want their citizens to work in Malaysia.

Mr Chay Kuey Teow: Although I totally sympathise with the maid and I know why any person shouldn't be forced to work and even worse without wages, I have some doubts about Indonesian domestic worker Saifannur’s story.

Firstly, grooming 30 Persian cats daily? Come on! I had a pet shop for almost a decade. Our professional groomer can do only a maximum of six cats a day.

Secondly, can the authorities check if she used her phone only once a year? If it's pre-paid, who's topping it up? Her phone number would have been discontinued if used only once a year.

Thirdly, most Indonesians in Malaysia have friends and family members here. Couldn't her daughter get help by informing friends or relatives to lodge a report?

While many Malaysians are bad when dealing with cheap labour, we should get to the bottom of this story.

Whathappenedtoprivacy?: While there might be holes in Saifannur’s story, the very fact that the 'employers' ended up paying her anyway shows that she was employed by them and had withheld her wages, or else why bother?

By all means, let's get to the bottom of the story and blacklist the employers until kingdom comes if true.

HangTuahPJ: It's because of these rich people who ill-treat their maids that all Malaysians are being condemned as cruel. There are many more Malaysians who treat maids like family, and this is not made known.

However, there are also maids who abuse their employers like mine. When I employed her, the employment agency said she should be allowed to use her mobile phone to call her son after work.

The Indonesian agent told me to keep her phone and allow her to use it only at night. Seeing her missing her little son badly, we allowed her to keep her phone. And you know what happened next?

The earphone was permanently stuck to her ears until she could not hear me calling or the baby crying. She disappears into her room to TikTok non-stop. So, the housework is not done.

She talked about getting married to a local here within six months of working for me and recently, she left to work at a factory in Penang. There are also wicked and lazy maids.

BobbyO: Human Resources Minister M Saravanan has told the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to report any abuses by local companies or individuals to his ministry.

How long more would Saifannur have suffered under these so-called datuks and datins if she had not escaped?

Why collect only half of her salary? She should claim the full amount. If not, sue them in court and expose them in public.

Bee: Her employers just paid some back wages and then got away scot-free? It’s just like stealing a billion, then settling the matter by giving back RM100 million. Still ‘untung’ (profiting) RM900 million.

This is setting a very bad precedence. Surely there are some laws that they can be charged with.

Mosquitobrain: With Indonesia's population 10 times more than us, an economy growing and mega-developments taking place at a faster rate than Malaysia, very soon we can "export" much-sought-after bilingual Ajib the cook, Saravanan the gardener and Ah Wee the driver to work there. - Mkini