It was Jawa Pos Headlines and Cover Story which I read yesterday 17 November 2008. It is a GOOD NEWS for Indonesia maids in Singapore, not only that, Indonesia Embassy will also involve significantly on the contract agreement between employer and maid, similar like in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The involvement of Embassy to make sure that Indonesia maid gets better treatment from employer.
Currently there are 80.000 Indonesia maids out from total 180.000 maids in Singapore, Filipino takes second place with 70.000 maids, while the rest share by Indian, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Srilanka. The average salary for Indonesia maids is range of SGD 320 - 350 or approximately USD 200.
Actually salary is not the big issue for Maids in Singapore, but the salary deduction is currently the biggest issue. Currently every maid who is working in Singapore has to bare 8 up to 9 months deduction which left them with only SGD 10 in their pocket. ONLY Rp. 70.000 and for 8 months !!!
The rest of the salary will go to her installment to Indonesia Manpower Agency and also the Singapore agency will ask for their services. So for 8 months in Singapore plus 3 months in Training Center, they can send any thing to her family back home, while their family hope, that the money could come as soon as posible so that they can support the family but mostly to pay their debt to loanshark where they loan money for them to go to Singapore!!!
It just big exploitation!!!
A female workers who wants to work overseas as a maid, normally they are free upfront, then they will be deducted from their salary for placement fee, so no need to bring money by force them self to take a loan. But Indonesia villager think differently, they have to take a loan from loanshark, so that the maid has pocketmoney and also to life in Training Center. So actually maids who work overseas, just working to cover their original loan from the loanshark while the maid itself has to pay the placement fee for the manpower company. It just like DEVIL RING.
Anyway Indonesia Maid in Hong Kong and Taiwan are have better chance rather than their fellowship in Singapore, where they still can earn minimal Rp. 200.000 up to a million rupiah after salary deduction which they can still send to their family home. Even in Malaysia, the deduction duration is only 6 months.
Singapore deduction is very RIDICULOUS!!!
This should be an effort from Indonesia Manpower Agency and Indonesia Embassy to stick together and try to find best solution. NOW, is quite hard to recruit maids for Singapore, and this should be good moment for Indonesia, with very good bargaining position, where the Demand from Singapore employer very high while the supply very low from Indonesia, we should be able to force Singapore Employer to pay at least half of the placement fee, so that Indonesia Maids can have better chance to send the money to their family as soon as possible.
We can if we want, I know the Embassy want to do that, but it is useless effort if not supported by All Indonesia Manpower Agencies. Well, I admit that among 400 legal manpower companies in Indonesia, only few have good and idealistic vision, while mostly they think only quantities and profit where they forget that the product we organize is Indonesia human being.
I just hope Indonesia Embassy in Singapore has very good solution, and what ever it is, Binamandiri will support 100%.
