Yatis employer, the lady of the house, often pinched and pulled her ears that they sometimes bled. Slaps and kicks were common. Yati is from East Java. Aminah, an Indonesian domestic worker, had been assaulted by her employer and locked up in the house for many months. The abuse was only exposed when she was later hospitalised for her injuries. Tori Deruno was punched in the face and threatened with a knife by her employer. Nurjanah was forced to cane herself on the legs and beaten until her face swelled. Her story front-paged local newspapers.

This is 21st century Malaysia. These are some of the issues Malaysians should ponder on come International Womens Day tomorrow. We would have to not only think of the welfare of local women folk, but also of women migrant workers who have come here to make a living as once did our forebears.

These are the cruelties women endure working away from home. They are poor and uneducated, and the system in place in this country to safeguard their welfare, especially those from Indonesia, is lacking.

Women organisations in the country are pushing for better working conditions for foreign domestic workers, almost all women. This includes lobbying for a bilateral agreement between governments of sending and receiving countries. Only the Phillippines has an ongoing agreement with Malaysia that to a certain extent ensures the well-being of their citizens. Indonesia has none.

There are calls to the Human Resources Ministry to produce guidelines on employing foreign domestic workers. Singapore has one in place, and this could be used as an example.

The Womens Aid Organisation is mooting for an age limit on foreign domestic workers. It is calling for compulsory contracts to be drawn up between employer and employee. Currently, the existing contract is between the agencies that provide domestic workers and the employer. This is no help to the employee, the foreign domestic worker.

WAO has put in a proposal last December to the Human Resources Ministry for a standard contract of employment and is awaiting the outcome. WAO is also suggesting the monitoring of recruitment agencies and the reprimanding of errant employers and agencies.

Battling bureaucracy

The battle foreign migrant workers face against bureaucracy is symptomatic of an unrelenting and unsympathetic system that serves to protect the interest of the employer first, said the WAO.

The organisation made this statement at the NGO World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, in August last year. Their view was formed based on their experience dealing with abuse cases of women foreign domestic workers in Malaysia.

The issue of foreign domestic workers abuse is becoming one of growing concern in Malaysia. Several severe cases have reached the attention of WAO. Since 1995 there have been 35 cases involving Indonesian maids, seven Filipinas, six Thais, one Bangladeshi and one Sri Lankan.

No big deal? The numbers are less than a hundred over a six-year period?

Well, think again. There is reason to believe that many more cases go unreported.

An abusive situation is likely to occur as the foreign domestic workers are already in a vulnerable position from having to live in their employers homes. Furthermore, there are not enough laws that offer them protection and the state and its agencies tend to look after the employers interests rather than theirs.

Additionally, the racial discrimination in the form of negative perceptions of migrant workers held by many Malaysians condone the abuse of foreign domestic workers.

Xenophobic Malaysians

Recently, while visiting a friend at her home, the writer was privy to a common rebuke and put-down targeted at migrant workers.

The writer had commented on how flawlessly the friends three-year-old nieces spoke English, well-aware that English in not habitually spoken in their house.

The friend said in disdain that their accent was like that of a Filipina maid. The children were being taken care of by a Filipina neighbour. These is an example of the xenophobic mentality of Malaysians that we see in everyday life.

Some of the other more hurtful rebukes aimed at foreign domestic workers: they seduce your husband, they run away, they sleep around, their culture is inferior to ours, they corrupt our family values.

At other times, the xenophobia leads to physical abuse.

We term the domestic migrant workers as servants and maids. This connotes a master-servant relationship, said WAO President Meera Sambanther. There is a prevailing sense of supremacy over the domestic workers.

Beating involves power play. And at times its a gender issue. Its a situation to do with influence of power. There are many cases of domestic workers being beaten up by their women employers.

Instead of recognising domestic workers as a valuable source of labour, many Malaysians treat them with contempt. We see them as robots, we see them as having no emotions, said Meera.

When the employer is not happy, they are threatened with deportation. They are threatened with being thrown out, losing their work permit and being abandoned. More often than not the employer has the upper hand.

The negative perception of the domestic workers as servants and maids only contributes to the frequency and severity of abuse cases. By and large migrant workers are seen as labourers and economic entities and not as individuals who have rights.

Get-maid-quick scheme

For those out there looking for maids, try the squatter settlements around Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, although the legality of these maids is suspect.

A visit to a squatter village in Petaling Jaya Selatan is a quick way to employ an Indonesian maid. Kuza (not her real name) needed a foreign domestic helper. She was led to what looked like a longhouse in the squatter settlement. Inside, sitting on rows and rows of single mattresses, were Indonesian women happily chatting, whiling away time, waiting to be employed.

All you do is pick the one you like, said Kuza, and she (the potential employee) will go off with you with a little bundle of all her worldly belongings wrapped in a sarong. The agent solicits a small fee. Kuza refused to reveal the amount unless the writer is serious in procuring a maid.

But isnt she afraid of harbouring an illegal immigrant?

Kuza said she has not quite thought about it that way.

She is happy that the maid has been with her several months now and has not given her any trouble. The writers request to speak to the maid, and for more information on hiring these maids, was turned down.

Despite the known existence of many illegal foreign workers in the country, the Malaysian government decided to open its doors to more migrant workers from countries in central Asia.

How can we do this when we are told the economy is down? asked Aegile Fernandez, migrant desk co-ordinator of Tenaganita. She fails to understand the rationale behind such as a move.

Meera agreed. By allowing workers from other countries to work in Malaysia, we are not addressing the problem. We are simply shifting the problem.

Cambodian training camp

There are already about 300 to 400 Cambodian maids in the country today. They started coming in about three years ago, and they are facing problems, said Fernandez. They find it difficult to adapt to an entirely new culture and language. They come from small villages, and some have no education. They are socially isolated as employers dont allow them to use the phone or go out with friends.

And some are employed illegally. This opens them up to abuse.

Fernandez had the opportunity recently to visit a domestic workers training camp in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. There, the women are taught to bathe babies, and given training in cleaning, washing and other domestic skills. It was quite amusing, said Fernandez, as the trainees had to have their hair cropped short. They all wore the same regiment T-shirt and shorts.

And they sang Happy birthday to the guests who had come to see them. Despite the peculiarities, this was a move in the right direction, said Fernandez. They are at least being given some form of training. She said there was a need for more human development skills, so that the domestic workers who have lived freely in the villages can adapt to city life in a completely different country.

Training and allowing for older domestic workers to be employed will not solve some of the more pressing problems facing them — the abuse. Malaysian employers have many reasons to hang their heads for being less than benevolent.

As such as much as orientation programmes are laudable, they should include employers as well, said Meera.

She said the wage rates between Indonesian and Filipinas are discriminative, favouring the latter. There is still no standard contract that spells out holidays, work hours and medical benefits for these employees. At the moment the domestic workers have not much to rely on and they become vulnerable.

Meera said Malaysians fail to realise that the country has become dependent on domestic helpers. We cannot do without them. Malaysia is not self-sufficient, but we do not recognise this.

We are lucky to have poor neighbours. Unfortunately we take them for granted. One day we just might be a sending country.

One million live-in maids

Last years statistics show that there were 155,000 registered maids in the country. Up to 73 percent were Indonesians, followed by Filipinas and others ( The Sun , Jan 31, 2002). There are many more who have come into the country illegally.

The total number of registered foreign workers in the country is said to be more than 700,000, some half a million of whom are Indonesians workers. The rest are Bangladeshis (105,000), Nepalese (48,000), Filipinos (17,000), Burmese (6,000), Thais (2,500), Pakistanis (2,000) and others (20,000).

These may be conservative estimates though. A report compiled by Tenaganita states that in Oct 1996 there were 1.75 million documented foreign workers in Malaysia. However, the report said the actual number of foreign workers is more likely to be in the region of three million. Of these, Tenaganita estimates that women workers total 1.25 million, the majority of whom are employed in the domestic sector as live-in maids.

There must be political will to come to the table to talk about the protection of all migrant workers.