Maid Saga

Who's afraid of Indonesian maids?

MAIDS are people too. But you would not think so judging from the shockingly negative response from employers of domestic helpers to government legislation making one day of leave per week mandatory. Opposition to this law has laid bare the knee-jerk tendencies and racism of certain segments of Malaysian society, despite transparent attempts by employers to couch their disapproval in minarchist, or limited-government, terms.

MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek fired the first high-profile salvo on behalf of the naysayers when he wrote a blog entry questioning the wisdom of such legislation. He opined that the congregation of maids on leave could potentially make parts of the city feel "un-Malaysian", and suggested that they would be susceptible to being hoodwinked by other foreigners into committing crimes that could possibly endanger their employers' lives.

Let's ignore for the moment that these comments were primarily targeted at Indonesian domestic helpers. After all, the Filipino government, through various alphabet soup organisations, has been largely successful in enforcing the one-day leave minimum for its nationals working overseas. Instead, let us first look at our legal responsibility to provide fair working conditions for domestic helpers in general.

Legal imperatives
Article 2.2(j) of the recently ratified Asean Charter proclaims that member states will "[uphold] the United Nations Charter and international law, including international humanitarian law, subscribed to by Asean Member States". This includes Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which reads: "Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."

While it is true that the UDHR is not a treaty, it was formulated to define the terms "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" as used in the United Nations Charter. The UN Charter is binding on all member states and, as has already been shown above, is a charter Asean claims to endorse. This would seem to indicate that we have an obligation from the point of view of international law, if not sheer decency, to ensure that domestic workers enjoy full labour rights, regardless of the impetus that first got the ball rolling.

Written by Yow Hong Chieh of The Nut Graph
Friday, 26 June 2009 12:25