Women's forum struggles to improve lot of domestic helpers

Women's forum struggles to improve lot of domestic helpers

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

A theater performance in the city during the weekend pulls in
a packed house, but this is no usual theater audience.

Instead of middle class actors playing to an upwardly mobile
crowd, this was a play about and by "the help".

Domestic workers watched as the narrative unfolded, a
disturbing story about the obscure and sometimes awful fate of
maids and nannies in the country, which they have staged and
prepared.

The two hour-drama, Suara Kehidupan (The Sound of Life), held
in the Purna Budaya building in Bulaksumur, was created by
members of the Tunas Mulia domestic worker association, some of
whom were taking a course especially designed to improve their
skills in dealing with employers.

Both the association and the school were established with the
help of the Tjoet Njak Dien Women's Forum, or as it is better-
known, the Rumpun Tjoet Njak Dien, one of the few non-government
organizations in the country that is concerned about the welfare
of domestic workers.

Named after the country's famous Acehnese heroine, Tjoet Njak
Dien, the organization has had many name changes since it was
first known as the Yogyakarta Women's Discussion Forum when it
opened in 1989.

But nothing has changed in the organization that has from the
beginning specialized in the empowerment of and advocacy for
woman employees, primarily domestic workers.

"Problems related to the employment of PRT (domestic workers)
have existed for a long time and they are crucial ones. Yet this
issue is being ignored by the government, the legislature, and
the public," group chairwoman Lita Anggraeni told The Jakarta
Post.

The acronym PRT is generally known as the abbreviation of
pembantu rumah tangga (domestic house maids) but Rumpun Tjoet
Njak Dien uses it to stand for pekerja rumah tangga or (domestic
workers) to highlight the fact that these women in the past have
often not been regarded as workers at all.

"This is ironic indeed, especially because these women have
contributed a great deal to helping millions of families in the
country. They have taken over the domestic work of millions of
pairs of husbands and wives who work in the public or private
sector and have made it possible for these couples to carry on in
their own jobs," Lita said.

Recent data shows that more than 2.5 million women and girls
are working as domestic workers, more of 600,000 of whom are
still children. However, Lita predicts the total number of these
workers is at least twice as high.

"We calculate about a third of Indonesian families, mostly
those in cities who are of the middle and upper income groups,
are employing domestic workers," Lita said.

Elusive

Yet, regardless of their vital roles in millions of homes
across the country, the public's appreciation of this occupation
is still low, she says.

This is illustrated by the low wages that average domestic
workers receive. The data from the National Statistic Office
(BPS) shows that up to November this year the average monthly
salary of a domestic worker in the country is Rp 146.851,
slightly higher compared to that of October of the same year of
only Rp 145.932.

"It's far below the regional minimum wage of Yogyakarta
province, which is some Rp 400,000 a month," Lita said.

Unfortunately, bad wages are not the only problem domestic
workers in this country face. As most come from marginalized
families, have limited educations and work out of the public eye
in private homes, they are also highly vulnerable to forms of
violence -- physical, sexual, psychological and economic.

Domestic workers also have limited access, or none at all to
outside help. In many cases, their abuse is only publicly known
after it becomes life-threatening or workers die.

The case of Sunarsih who died after being tortured (Surabaya,
2001); Maryati who was murdered (Jakarta, this year); Sisamah,
Halimah, and Ratih who were sent to hospitals after being beaten
(also in Surabaya between 2001-2002); and N who was raped
(Surakarta, this year) are only a few of the worst examples.

"The working area of a PRT, which is considered private and is
often impervious to legal intervention from outside, has been
blamed as the main cause of such violence and has left the public
largely unaware of the problems they face," Lita said.

What was as saddening was that the many stories of abuse had
not yet moved the government or the public to consider the need
for legal guarantees and protections for domestic workers, she
said.

Confronted with these basic recurring problems, Rumpun Tjoet
Njak Dien staff have been creative in finding solutions --
through both structural and cultural approaches.

"Our main goal is the issuance of government regulations for
PRT at the regental and municipal levels and the creation of
either a law on domestic workers or an amendment to the existing
law on manpower that accommodates PRT as workers," Lita said.

The organization welcomed the passing of Law No 23/2004 on the
eradication of domestic violence, which it considered a step
toward protecting domestic workers.

"But we still have a lot work to do to make them legally and
socially considered, treated, and protected as workers."

A main concern was the long hours most domestic employees in
the country worked in jobs that did not have clear descriptions.

Anecdotal evidence was that most maids and nannies worked
between 10 and 15 hours a day and had to do almost all the
domestic work of families they worked for without any formal
description of their tasks, Lita said.

As a result, they had limited time to rest, much less to
socialize. "These workers are human beings and they deserve to be
treated as such," she said.

Compartmentalizing its goals to better achieve them, the group
spends a lot of time organizing the workers -- providing them
with assertiveness training to deal with potentially violent
situations, informing them of where to go to get help should they
need it, and, most importantly, helping the workers prepare a
draft for a employment contract.

At the community level, the organization periodically
campaigns to increase public awareness about the conditions of
domestic workers and the rights they deserve.

At the legislative level, members lobby local legislative
councils and governments to issue regulations.

Their efforts have shown promising results. At the provincial
level in Yogyakarta, Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X last
year issued a decree requiring the municipality and the four
regencies in the province to issue regional regulations on
domestic workers.

However, while these regulations existed in theory, little was
being done to ensure they were being enforced, Lita said.

"As I have said, we still have a lot to do to make domestic
workers legally and socially protected."