RI maids dance to their own beat in Singapore

RI maids dance to their own beat in Singapore

Fabio Scarpello
Contributor
Singapore

In any media report on Indonesian maids in Singapore, chances are
it deals with death, abuse or violence. But it all sounds distant
and alien to Mary, Ica, Etika and Enny, among about 30 others
gathered outside City Plaza shopping center.

No one has a single bad experience to mention and no one has
ever met any of their 93 compatriots that have died in the city-
state during the past five years.

City Plaza is a popular shopping center in Paya Lebar, an area
several MRT stops west of -- and quite a bit cheaper than -- the
busy and elegant Orchard Road. Here, on their off time, the
Indonesian community gathers, and if Nepalese, Pakistani and
Bangladeshi nationals can also be seen, clues to which nation has
marked the territory are the nasi goreng (fried rice) and gado-
gado food stalls just in front the of main entrance.

They are all women (an estimated 70 percent of Indonesian
domestic workers here are women), all young and all working as
maids, locally known as "foreign domestic workers". Big broad
smiles and trendy clothes are the norm, together with a
surprising detachment with the mother country, that the travel
cost alone cannot fully justify.

Mary from Sumatra has been home only once during the six years
she has already spent in Singapore, and she is no exception. Enny
left Indonesia five years ago, Etika four and Ica three. They all
came from Central Java and none has been back since.

But Tina from Jakarta beats them all as she has been in
Singapore for seven years without a break; unsurprisingly, she
claims that "the memories of my family are starting to fade".

All say they miss their mothers, fathers and the rest of their
families, but all are quick to add they have got used being alone
and they hope to stay in Singapore longer. As is customary, some
send part of the wage back to pay for a sibling's education or
for general help, but others declare to have cut the umbilicus'
cord and to have broken every link with their families and their
responsibilities.

"I have two brothers and my mother is sick. They all want
money but I don't earn enough to support them all. If I sent some
money it would not be enough for them and it would spoil my life
here, so I don't. My mother is very angry with me but I have not
been home for four years and maybe I will never go back," said
Etika, her words echoed by several others.

Their work day is very long, with most starting at 7 a.m. and
going all the way to 8 p.m. Others are not so lucky, required to
work from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m. Besides the usual housework
(cleaning, washing, cooking, ironing) it is pretty common to have
to look after children and sometime the elderly. It is not so
common but not unheard of to have to wash the car also.

While the average wage is S$350 per month, the employer's
nationality and the maid's experience do matter: "Chinese
Singaporeans are usually pretty good, but if you have just
arrived you are probably going to get only S$200, while if you
have been here a few years then you can get more," said Ica.

A few are luckier, like Tina, for example, who has just
finished her contract and signed a new one for S$500.

"My new boss is an English lady, who has moved to Singapore on
her own. She wanted someone that has been here long, knows her
way around and speaks good English," she said with a beaming
smile.

To get her new job, Tina went through the embassy that
provides a helpful recruitment service, a route that all of them
say is much better than the other options.

"Agencies charge a lot of money, some of them keep S$200 per
month of your wage for the first six months of your work, this
will leave you with only S$30."

There seem to be no complaints of the treatment they have
received.

"Employers are generally very good and sometimes it is the
maid's fault that she doesn't do her job properly," Indri said.

Her comment clashes with the comments of Chalief Akbar, head
of information of the Indonesian Embassy.

"About 30 to 40 Indonesians maids each month take refuge at
the shelter provided at the embassy for reasons that vary from
lack of food, harassment, unpaid wages or violence," he said.

One way to explain the different perspective is that most of
the abused maids are not allowed to leave their homes, with the
employers often withholding their passports. It follows that
unless something very grave happens, their stories, plight and
pain are not shared with others maids. Another important factor
to bear in mind is that the 28,000 accredited Indonesian maids
are only part of the 70,000 believed to be in the city-state.

"Of this large illegal percentage, very little (information)
surfaces," Chalief said.

But Mary, Ica, Etika and Enny do not know that, and their
cheerfulness is a nice change.

"We like it here very much. We do lots of shopping, we have
friends, some money and boyfriends," they said.

The chosen partners are usually manual workers from India,
Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Nepal. The social divider with
locals is quite marked and enforced by the law that forbids
foreign maids from marrying a Singaporean man.

Tina explains the relationship very clearly: "Local people do
not mix with us, they are good to work for but never become
friends."

Then it is time to go dancing and the Mavar Dangdut -- a small
daily club inside City Plaza -- comes to life. The beat is the
latest playing in similar venues in Java. The lights are low, the
music is loud and the smiles are plentiful. And the girls have
not lost their rhythm.

From here, Jakarta seems much further than a one-hour flight.