Poor students work as maids, miss families over holidays

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While many people are leaving the city to join the annual Idul Fitri exodus, Ratmi, a 23-year-old student from Pacitan, Central Java, is here to work as a domestic for a middle-upper income Jakarta family.

Ratmi is a final-year student in the Pacitan campus of the Muhammadiyah University of Surabaya, who is majoring in Islamic education.

This year is her third time to celebrate Idul Fitri far away from her family as a result of her decision to take a job as a substitute domestic.

"I need the money to help my parents and to support my two siblings. And the money is more than enough to pay my tuition fees. The job is good and decent ... I'm not ashamed of it," she told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

At least 100 women, many of them high school and college students, from Pacitan, Central Java, have come to Jakarta to work as domestic helpers just for about a month. They are initially accommodated by the Jasa Abadi Foundation, which supplies nannies and housemaids.

"They come here as many of villagers are in dire need of money because of this year's harvest failure due to the long dry season," Tien A.R., chairwoman of the foundation, who also comes from Pacitan, told the Post at her offices in Cipulir, South Jakarta.

As of Monday, all of the women had been picked up by their new employers.

There is always a high demand for domestic helpers around Idul Fitri when many return to their home villages to celebrate the holidays.

Nurul, another villager here to work as a substitute housemaid, said that not being with her family for the country's most popular holiday was unavoidable because there would not be another chance for the rest of the year to get a simple job with a good salary.

"Physically and mentally, I'm ready to do the housework chores. Besides, my employers for the last two years have been nice people. The only hard thing for me is when I have to stay in the house all by myself," she complained.

Each of the temporary housemaids, Tien said, were paid Rp 50,000 (around US$5.6) per day. The wage for 20 days was much higher than the normal salary for domestics, who were usually paid between Rp 200,000 and Rp 250,000 a month.

For a temporary nanny, the wage was between Rp 60,000 and Rp 80,000 per day.

The foundation charges the would-be employer between Rp 200,000 and Rp 250,000 in administration fees.

In Jakarta alone, there are 27 similar foundations that serve as agents for domestics and baby-sitters.

Ledy, a resident of the Bintaro area in Tangerang, collected her domestic on Friday from the Kasih Ibu Foundation on Jl. Mampang Prapatan in South Jakarta. She was required to pay Rp 300,000 for the housemaid's 10 days of work and another Rp 250,000 for the administration fee.

She told the Post that she had hired the substitute domestic as both her three-year-old child's nannie and her regular domestic had left for their hometowns.

"I cannot look after my child and the house at the same time. I need a helper to cook, to wash the clothes and to keep the house tidy," she said.

But she did not hire a substitute nanny. "It would be a waste of money because my child probably wouldn't feel comfortable with the new nanny."