Action to protect maids

JAKARTA – INDONESIA ordered employment agencies to stop sending its citizens to Malaysia to work as maids following a flood of complaints from domestic workers that their employers abused them, a government minister said on Thursday.

The measure will take effect on Friday and remain in place until safeguards are implemented in Malaysia, Indonesian Manpower Minister Erman Suparno said after meeting officials from three other Indonesian ministries in the capital, Jakarta.

High-level talks will be held July 15 with Malaysian counterparts to seek a resolution, he said.

More than 300,000 Indonesian women work as maids in Malaysia.

Around 3,000 new maids head for Malaysia every month, most of them placed through specialised employment agencies, the Manpower Ministry said.

Maids file up to 150 complaints every month with authorities in Indonesia, alleging ill treatment, overwork, unpaid salaries and physical abuse in Malaysia.

Malaysian Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said on Wednesday that his country may have to look elsewhere ‘to fill the country’s needs’. ‘If their maids were not allowed to work here, then in the spirit of neighbourliness, we will respect their decision,’ The Star quoted him as saying.

The latest case to gain media attention involved a 33-year-old Indonesian maid who escaped this month, claiming she was scalded with hot water and beaten.

Police detained her Malaysian employer, who faces up to 20 years in jail and a fine or whipping is convicted in court of causing grievous hurt.

‘We want to protect our migrant workers from contract violations and physical abuse,’ Mr Suparno told reporters after the meetings. — AP