Here's an Opinion Article I did for my COM 300 Written Communications module. Decided to touch on a slightly sensitive subject - Foreign Domestic Workers. There's been much controversy recently ever since the case where a FDW "ill-treated" a child with special needs by failing to follow the proper procedure her employers had taught her in caring for the child.
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When did our maids suddenly become caregivers and tutors?
Brigid De Souza for Com300
ARE WE EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM OUR FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKERS (FDW)?
In Singapore, we currently have 237, 100, and counting, FDW, which equates to 1 maid for every 5 Singapore households. In the past, it used to be a benefit to hire a maid, however, now it is norm.
Some of the reasons Singaporeans are hiring maids are due to our ageing population and long working hours, which amounts to us being unable to take care of our aged parents, children, or even to do daily household chores like cooking and cleaning. However, in recent years, the roles of maids have gone beyond their initial job scope.
Nowadays, there are maids who do more than keeping the household clean and cooking for their employers.
Ministry of Manpower rules state that foreign domestic workers “can only perform domestic chores” however, they do not define exactly what “domestic chores” entail. Hence, Singaporeans have taken advantage of this loophole by hiring maids to do things other than basic cooking and cleaning. Besides simply being a housekeeper, as what was initially expected, the job scope of a maid has broadened and now even entails caring for their employer’s mentally or physically disabled loved ones, helping their employer’s children with their homework, and sometimes even doing the homework for them. Some foreign domestic workers even have to tolerate physical and verbal abuse from their employers.
Is it fair to expect too much from our maids? The answer is no.
The main reason why I bring this topic up is because of a recent case involving Kusrini Caslan Arja, an Indonesian maid where she was charged in court for ill-treating her employer’s bedridden four-year-old son, who has type one spinal muscular atrophy and requires support ventilation and oxygenation. A little backstory to what happened; she was hired by the family in March 2016 and was taught by them how to use the suction machine on their handicapped son properly. However, one morning, she failed to follow her employers’ instructions and she “improvised” the proper method to clear the phlegm from his windpipe by inserting the cap into his mouth, despite them telling her to only use it outside his mouth, and this thus sparked a mishap. The cap got lodged in his throat and without thinking clearly or logically and calling for help, she used her hand to manually retrieve the cap from his throat but she failed. When her employers came back, she still did not alert them to the situation immediately and instead, they discovered the catastrophe themselves when they saw that he had a higher than usual heart rate and there was blood in the pump container of the suction machine.
Kusrini was unrepresented in court when she was charged for her negligence but luckily District Judge Low Wee Ping refused to charge her unfairly and thus appointed a lawyer to her.It was also clear to Judge Low that Kusrini did not ill-treat the boy intentionally during the crisis. Instead, she had behaved like how a normal person would have if they were faced in a crucial situation. I also wholeheartedly agree with him when he says, “We employ domestic maids to be car washers, gardeners, plumbers, nurses, when they should not...When they do something wrong, we point fault at them.”
How is it fair to expect our FDW, who have no prior medical training, to take care of our physically disabled loved ones? How is it fair that we push the entire blame towards them the moment something goes wrong? Most of these maids come from rural backgrounds and prior to coming to Singapore for work, they have never stepped foot out of their village, do not have basic education and probably do not know anything about technology. It is also unfair to expect a maid to do something she is untrained to do or has no knowledge on the matter whatsoever.
It also depends on each individual and hiring the right person for the job; the job to care for the physically incapacitated loved one. Even though the FDW does not have proper education, they will still be able to care for your loved one if she has determination, mental resilience and the willingness to put in extra effort to pick up extra skills on how to operate the medical equipment and broaden their technological expertise. Currently, as the government has noticed more citizens hiring maid as caregivers, the Ministry of Manpower is allowing employers to send their maids for caregiver training courses under the Agency for Integrated Care’s (AIC) Caregivers Training Grant and an annual $200 subsidy will be granted for caregiving of seniors and the disabled.
There are also some maids who already have the relevant medical and caregiving certificates however, Singaporeans are not keen on hiring them as it would cost them close to $1000. However, this is the price you have to pay if you want someone qualified enough to take care of your ailing relatives. Would you rather hire a domestic worker who has no clue on how to care for your physically handicapped loved one, just because it’s cheaper?
We really need to stop expecting too much from our foreign domestic workers. We make them do so many things out of what is initially required and we expect them to do everything perfectly. Are we as perfect when we go to work? Nobody is perfect, not even us, so we should not expect absolute perfection from them either.
We also need to remember to hire the right person for the job.
- The writer is an undergraduate at the University at Buffalo (UB), Singapore Institute of Management (SIM)
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