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(En)gendering the Pitfalls of Legislation and Rise of Domestic Workers:
the power line is the poverty line is the basis for undiue discrimination
and exploitation
Within the next 10 or 20 years, the domestic policies which shape and influence our lives will have to take into account the challenges posed by this influx of foreign domestic workers. As we become increasingly dependent on foreign labour as a result of the vision to shape Singapore into a bustling entrepolis; we will realise that a lack of involvement with the issues of our neighbouring countries will need to be overturned as we evolve into a society that generates increased integration and interaction with foreign labour. We can no longer claim to be immune to the problems and welfare of our neighbours. Many employers bear with them the burden of having to cope with a fast pace of life – as work in the office occupies most of their time, many of them do not have the time or energy to deal with domestic chores. The increased affluence of each household also entails a corresponding desire to be involved in leisure activities – formerly a luxury which only the monetarily-empowered could afford. The increased affluence of each household, when pegged to the economies of neighbouring countries (where the FDWs usually come from), means that the average middle-class household in Singapore would be able to afford the $200-400 salaries of FDWs without much financial constraint. Factoring into the rise of FDWs: women in the workforce
This might seem controversial as it implies that there is a cause and effect quality to the nature of the problem – that the problem stems from the fact that women have started entering the workforce and are no longer confined to household duties. However, one should be careful not to leap to the conclusion that the only solution to the problem would be to curb women from entering the workforce. Neither should one attribute the high incidence of abuse by female employers to a single cause. Rather, one should perhaps re-examine the inadequacies in the current structure to cope with the problems and conflicts encountered between employers and domestic workers. The problem is a non-gendered one with a not so coincidental gender slant (which has, perhaps, been engendered through centuries of matriarchal hegemony in the household). With that in mind, I have taken to the task of interviewing a female employer who has been hiring domestic workers for the past 20 years. This female employer (in her late 40s) lives in a fairly large household with a large number of family members. However, she does not belong to the category of female employers who are working. Notably, she would be a person who has had daily contact with domestic workers and thus would be more helpful in providing accurate information for my discussion.
From the material gathered from the interview, I would conclude that in general, Mrs. W could be perceived as a reasonable employer. However, some of the problems appeared to have arisen as a result of a lack of personal engagement with the maid. Employers have had the tendency to not pay any attention to the personal well-being of the maids. Little or no attempt has also been made to understand their cultures or lifestyles. In general, employers might be too busy with their daily activities to be able to spend time with the maid and address her needs. This is a somewhat natural if not unavoidable problem. However employers must realise that if effort is made on their part to get to know the maids better, the attitudes of the maids themselves would change. In Mrs.W’s case, she pretty much required her maids to attend to their scope of duties, but was also often disappointed when they started to demand for days off and/or attempted to get out of work, which they were supposed to do. The current remedy or probable solution would be proper education about the maid’s scope of duties (which must be laid out explicitly and clearly to avoid abuse). Such information would best be disseminated to both employers and the maids themselves so as to avoid confusion. There has to be some form of standardisation of the scope of duties for all maids. Inadequacies in current legislation
The maid agencies themselves sometimes do not provide adequate information to potential employers about the character and work experience of the maid. In cases such as Mr.Quek’s, transfer from one employer to the next does not implicate the agency in any breach of contractual agreement. This probably implies that maid agencies do not suffer any monetary loss during the transitional period whereby a maid switches employers. However, this means there is also some risk involved when an employer hires a maid (as with any other form of employment); however the problem lies in the fact that employers still have to pay for the time invested in searching for a maid, teaching her the ropes, and consequently, bear the cost of the maid levy even when the maid does not abide by the minimum time period stipulated in the contract. Employers also have to wait patiently for a replacement from the same agency as they would not be able to retrieve the agency fee which they paid should they wish to discontinue engaging its services. This creates a problem for employers who are sincerely in need of a person to handle household duties, but have no choice but to abide by the terms of a particular maid agency, as there is no legislation as such to standardise contracts made between individual agencies and employers. Maid agencies as mediators Most maid agencies perform the function of a mediator between employers and their foreign domestic workers. They perform several functions at one go – sometimes to the extent of providing “counselling” to domestic workers who call them. When employers and their domestic workers are in conflict, agencies may sometimes have to take action against employers who do not provide sufficient food or allow sufficient rest, or even in cases where domestic workers encounter abuse and have their salaries deducted or delayed unnecessarily. This probably means that a large majority of maid agencies are ill-equipped with professional know-how and counselling expertise to deal with problems of domestic workers should they occur. Errant practices: exploitation and abuse
An employer also shared her experience involving other problems with labour
legislation. Apparently some agencies have offered a zero-fee service to prospective
employers. This implied that employers would not have been charged a single
cent because this cost would be borne by the maid when the agencies deduct the
cost from her salary. Another article “Get maids to sleepwalk” (Today,
14th June 2003) claimed that some agencies went as far as promoting “packages”
in which maids could be hired for a salary of only $20 per month. This would
mean that no fees would be involved in such cases when a maid is “packaged”
for the consumption of the employer. The costs of employment are “buffered”
through deductions in the maids’ salaries – a scheme devised by
agencies in an attempt to remain competitive in view of the glut of agencies
that have sprung up over the recent years. This is of course done at the discretion
of the agencies and the deduction is done without the proper consent of the
maids themselves. Could you imagine yourself in a situation whereby your employer
deducted your salary without a proper explanation until your paycheck arrives
(that is, if it arrives at all)? On top of them, do you expect an average person
(irregardless of nationality, age or gender) to survive on a pittance of $20
per month? This would not even be adequate to cover a week’s transportation
fees! Maids are humans too
Who is to be held responsible, afterall, when maids encounter abuse right in our very own homes? What are the measures that have been enforced to ensure that domestic workers have adequate support networks to depend on? What have the authorities done to curb the dependence on FDWs besides using monetary measures such as the maid levy to deter such reliance? Perhaps, by foregrounding the recognition that domestic workers are human beings with complex desires and emotional and psychological needs, authorities would recognise that a re-examination of current support structures has been sorely lacking or ignore the issues which have surfaced as a result of legislative inadequacies – at their own peril.
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Look around
you and you will realise that the cultural landscape of Singapore no longer
comprises the neatly delineated categories of Indian, Malay, European and Chinese.
The flows of human traffic have been opened up via the channels of technology,
pumping up the global network of human labour. Indeed, it would not be unusual
to catch sight of your friendly FDW engaged in various activities, making up
part of the ever-changing societal landscape of Singapore. Encounters with your
friendly FDW would be a thing of the norm – oftentimes, they would be
washing the cars of their respective employers in the wee hours of the morning
or fetching the children of their employers from school in the afternoons. The
Orchard Road area in particular, has become a favourite haunt of theirs on Sundays.
Indubitably, they have become part and parcel of our daily lives – affecting
us both directly and indirectly as they start developing ties with Singaporeans.
As women
have become increasingly involved in the workforce, the income of each household
has subsequently been doubled. Correspondingly, the roles of women as primary
caretakers of children and housework have started to fade in importance. To-date,
women are still deemed to be “in charge” of domestic affairs such
as cleaning the house and cooking food. Although most women involved in the
workforce have been alleviated of housework to a certain extent by the presence
of FDWs, they still have to cope with the supervision of their FDWs at home.
This is in line with the entrenched notion of females as being naturally predisposed
towards such activities. Not surprisingly, women with the dual responsibilities
of childcare and career have found it difficult to find the time and patience
to give proper guidance to FDWs who are usually still in the process of getting
used to the brand new environment and fast-paced lifestyle. Many reports of
abuse have involved female employers who simply could not cope with the demands
of work in the office and the problems caused by domestic workers at home. 
Mrs W:
No, it doesn’t make a difference, the important thing is the personality
of each individual maid and their personal attitudes that make the difference.
The problem
stems from inadequate legislative measures to help alleviate pressure on employers
to “manage” their maids in such a way that it demands too much of
their time. One example drawn from research efforts showed that even employers
themselves are often in a quandary as to how to approach certain areas where
legislation had failed to protect their rights. One interviewee, Mr.Quek, a
single father with two boys, stated that his maid left him after two weeks without
fulfilling the stipulated time period in their initial contracts. He had called
up the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and discovered that there were no rules protecting
his rights as an employer unless a complaint was filed directly to the Work
Permit Department. 
A Straits Times article
dated 30th August 2002, “Raise age limit to 21? Maids could always lie”
presented a scope of varying perspectives obtained from employers and agencies.
A spate of cases involving maid abuse prompted Ministers of Parliament (MPs)
to suggest raising the minimum age of domestic workers from 18 to 21. The rationale
behind this is that older domestic workers would have higher awareness of their
rights and have higher capacities for protecting themselves against abuse. More
often than not, young maids tend to be more submissive and thus more susceptible
to abuse. There have been cases when maids were used by exploitative maid agents
to handle the agents’ own household chores while the maids were in the
care of the agencies. So far, there have been no preventive measures set up
to control the activities of maid agencies and their respective treatment of
the maids during training sessions or during transitional periods whereby maids
are under the care of the agencies while waiting for employers to hire them.
As such, the maid agencies wield too much control over the maids’ well-being.
We must of course,
come to realise that foreign domestic workers, are human beings who need emotional
fulfilment and financial security for the sakes of their psychological well-being
just like any one of us. Afterall, what have they done to deserve such mistreatment
– simply accrued to the fact that they come from impoverished backgrounds
and are “different” from us in fundamental ways? We should in fact
applaud their tremendous grit and courage to leave their native homelands in
order to alleviate the financial burdens of their loved ones. In a world whereby
we come to view ourselves as being enmeshed in an increasingly transglobal network
of social ties, we could no longer “play dead” to the sufferings
of others who have become part and parcel of our societal landscape. Clearly,
more needs to be done to move legislation, ensuring that domestic workers be
treated with the basic dignity that they are intrinsically predisposed to and
deserve as a fundamental right.