Real protection urged for maids

Real protection urged for maids

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Activists questioned on Wednesday the seriousness of the City
Council and the administration to provide legal protection for
housemaids.

Lawyer Ratna Batara Murti of the Legal Aid Association of
Indonesian Women for Justice (LBH APIK) and researcher Dhevy
Setya Wibawa of Atma Jaya University criticized the
administration's failure to implement Bylaw No. 6/1993 on the
supervision of domestic helpers in the city.

While hailing their plan to revise the bylaw, they underlined
that the new regulations should be made to protect the
housemaids.

"The bylaw should include protection of the rights of domestic
helpers and should not just be used as a tool for the
administration to exploit taxes from the recruitment agencies,"
Ratna said.

She said that most Jakartans were not aware of the presence of
the 1993 bylaw because the administration had not publicized it.

The bylaw carries sanctions for the bylaw violators of three
months in detention or Rp 50,000 in fines.

It has 31 articles. Six articles are about the obligations of
the recruitment agency, two articles mention obligations of the
employers, two articles on the obligation of domestic helpers and
eight articles regulate the agency's obligation to pay fees to
the administration.

"It does not discuss any details of the working contract, the
working hours, holiday, leave, facilities or compensation," Dhevy
added.

Therefore, they said it was important to revise the bylaw.

"It's too early to talk about its effectiveness now, but I
believe that a revision is needed to assure the rights of the
maids as well as the relationship between them and their
employers," Dhevy said.

Ratna said the council should seek information from non-
governmental organizations or other parties concern with the
issue before revising the bylaw.

"If they are serious about protecting maids, they must work
together with these parties as well as residents here to assure
its implementation. Otherwise, the bylaw would mean nothing," she
said.

On Tuesday, the head of the city manpower agency Ali Zubair
said that the revision of the bylaw would give detailed rulings
on the agreement between the domestic helper and the employers.

The revision would include the obligations of each domestic
helper agency to pay tax to the administration. Currently, the
bylaw regulates each agency to pay Rp 500,000 for an operational
license, which lasts for three years. But, Ali said that it had
not been implemented.

Maids actually play an important part in Indonesian's
households. Most middle-class families rely on their maids to
take care of their household chores, cook their food and raise
their children.