Of Michael and Maids

I woke up today and found out the news that the biggest pop star in the world has passed away. He apparently had a heart attack. He was 50. He was the first pop star I ever had a crush on as a little girl, and he was a legend, before he screwed up his life with a few huge mistakes. May he rest in peace.

Today's The Star wrote about how Jakarta was stopping the export of maids due to the influx of abuse complaints by those already here. The government recently announced that they wanted to enforce that maids get one day of rest a month.

I happen to have mixed feelings about this. I have had a few experiences, as a child, with maids. Some were trustworthy and really very good. One of them complained to my mother that a neighbour's maid was trying to persuade her to run off and work with another employer. My mom, obviously, was furious that this busybody was trying to disrupt our peaceful lives. Our maid, at that time, was obviously one of the more trustworthy ones. We still keep in contact with some of our old maids, they did good all those years while I was growing up.

The not-so-trustworthy ones, we had cases of also. One tried to come on to my dad. Another was sneaking out to meet construction workers from her own country, for some reason, forgetting the fact that she had a husband and kids at home.

So I've had my share of good and bad maids. On one hand, I worry that with this enforcement, the maids will meet more people outside and get influenced into doing something bad. Some of them are very young girls, barely touching adulthood and have never experienced life outside of their own villages.

On the other hand, of course, I am very aware that these people are humans. They're not slaves. They don't deserve to be beaten up, or locked in. They don't deserve to sit on the floor with no food while the family has a huge dinner (my husband says he saw this in a restaurant once). They deserve equal treatment. They're employees. If we can come to work and be nice to our employees in the office, why is it so difficult to do the same with the one at home?

So the enforcement is really a double-edged sword.

As for those people who decided to abuse their maids, shame on them. Maybe THEIR employers should do the same to them so they'd know how it feels.

These people are miles and miles away from home. They left their families behind in order to provide for them. They're sacrificing so much so that their loved ones would have a better life. Is it too much to ask to treat them nicely so that they at least decrease their loneliness in this strange foreign country?