By: Azmi Anshar

MALAYSIA - If ever the choice was ideal, women of the world would vote that working as a maid is hell of a Hobson's choice, the pits when it comes to "legal" options.

But when reality sets in, coupled by the ruthlessness of class warfare, women from underdeveloped, Third World nations have as much a choice as a penitentiary inmate on the kinds of jobs that bring in hard-earned money to buy food, shelter and clothing for the family. Being a maid is the easiest anywhere where the country is economically developed but the toughest to stay put and the hardest to predict a future.

Maids all over possess similar qualifications -- physically determined, academically challenged and very vulnerable to legal conundrums and employers' whims and fancies. Their status is looked down the same way most people look at garbage collectors and road sweepers -- with little respect for their dignity as human beings and little empathy for the hard work they put in day in and day out.

However, this lack of homage is reflected in the way Malaysians pay them -- as little as RM300 a month and no more than RM700 for those who have experience. The cash bears no resemblance to the toil they put in. Household employers argue that the cash is tax free and clean, on top of the bed and board, and clothes they also provide. How civic-mindedly conscientious of these employers but accepting their argument without the benefit of compassion and care for their servants is no different from the employers who exploit workers in sweat shops.

One recent example was the employers' howls of protest after the government proposed that maids get a day off a week but yet these same people would file suits against their companies and lodge reports with trade unions if they don't get their obligatory days off and public holidays.

They are simply unable to pass down the same benefit to their maids. This benign form of hypocrisy is so much taken for granted.
Conversely, they can stun you with horror stories of maids who abandon and abuse helpless children and become chief suspects in inside jobs of burglary and robbery. Admittedly, these pernicious maids must be punished the same way a parent who abuses his child.

Then there's the inane complaint -- maids meet men and forge unconscionable relationships, getting pregnant because they use their days off to frolic with their boyfriends.

It does prove the point that maids are treated so disdainfully that they are not permitted to behave like human beings.

It's not the same thing, employers would weakly argue. Malaysians' idea of the ideal maid is a stone-cold workaholic with icy veins and a hydrogen battery pack, indulged with a Stepford wife-like, slavish disposition to do anybody's bidding with no whinging or drama queen antics.

To be fair, the weekly day off demand may be off-putting for most households, so why not try something easier: eight-hour work days just like everybody else in this country. But maids are like family, so they should be exploited to work ceaselessly.

Foreign maids, whether Malaysians would admit it, will always be overworked and underpaid.

Whenever an Indonesian maid is abused (must it always be an Indonesian maid?), of course the Indonesian Government overreacts, particularly during an election year.

The latest edict is to stop sending maids to Malaysia. But the Indonesians forget that their maids are not the only game in town. China, India, Bangladesh and Nepal are itching to get a piece of the action.

But overreact or not, no foreign maid deserves a bashing in the head or a horrendous scalding. Demented employers like these should be publicly whipped, and not just jailed or fined.

So praise the government's proposal that 251,355 foreign maids would soon enjoy statutory benefits in an amendment to the Employment Act, which means minimum wage, EPF contributions, social security and cost of living allowance, and perhaps a regular eight-hour day and weekly days off and public holidays too.

The goal though has an irreverent sub-plot -- stop dependence (overdependence?) on foreign maids to encourage local maidens to take up the slack. Good luck on that.

Ever remotely hear of a local girl working as a maid in Klang Valley? They would either be mad or masochistic. Why bother with the aggravation when the work at the Petaling Jaya electronics plant is better paid, plus regular perks that foreign maids can only dream of getting -- eight-hour work days, two days off a week, health/medical insurance, two-week annual paid vacation, annual bonuses and best of all, the freedom to romantically socialise and fraternise.

Malaysians' uneven relationships with their foreign maids have generated warm tales and gothic horrors. We have wonderful maids just as we have lunatics who deceive their employers.

We also have employers so compassionate that they even pay their maids' annual 'balik kampung' return air tickets and give a day off in a week as long as they religiously care for the kids.

That's why the stories of two-legged beasts who think nothing of chaining their hired hands inside a little lock-up so they cannot flee to freedom, are exceptions.

However, this does not preclude the fundamental need to treat maids as human beings no different from white-collared and blue-collared professionals.

Malaysians have to strip away their twisted class dogma and start treating and paying foreign maids the same manner they make demands from their bosses, companies and corporations.

--NST