The Mind Creative NOV-Dec 2016

sexual abuse. They received wages ranging from nothing to $50
a month. Many complained of not getting enough to eat, sleeping
in store rooms, working 14 to 18 hours a day and never having a
day off except during the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Fitr.
Despite the evidence of mistreatment, the report said few of
the 19 government officials interviewed were prepared to admit
there was a problem or a need to have regulation in the area. It
quoted an official from the National Ministry of Manpower as
saying that if maids were given a day off “they would not know
what to do and would not know where to go”.
The Indonesian Minister for People’s Welfare, Alwi Shihab, said
the practice of wealthier families taking care of children from poor
families had long been the basis for the system of maids in
Indonesia and did not need regulating. “You Westerners don’t
understand – it’s a cultural issue,” he said, adding that maids “can
run away if something is wrong”. An official from the Ministry of
Women’s Empowerment went further, saying that girls should not
be viewed as domestic workers as “they are regarded by
employers as their own children”.
Nevertheless, Jakarta complains about the treatment of
Indonesian domestic servants in neighbouring Malaysia and
Singapore. A couple of
years ago, the then
president, Megawati
Soekarnoputri, met the
mother of Nirmala
Bonat after Malaysian
papers published
pictures of the
Indonesian maid whose
employer repeatedly
burnt her with an iron.
Nirmala’s mistress
tortured her for over five months, before she was spotted by
someone wearing bloodstained clothes, rescued from her
tormentor and taken to the authorities.
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