The government is proposing a compulsory weekly offday for foreign domestic workers soon. The provision comes with a penalty of up to RM10,000 for non-compliance. This move is not only welcome but I wonder why it has taken so long.
Fundamentally, this is not a question of labour law and practice but one of compassion and ethics.
Must we wait until the government passes a new law to make it compulsory for us to give our domestic workers a weekly day of rest before we are willing to do so? Why can’t we just do unto others what we would like others do unto us?
How would we feel if our employers told us we have to work seven days a week? How would we feel if our daughters, sisters and even mothers are forced to work overseas by circumstances and they are not given a weekly day off there?
And there are many Malaysians who worked overseas as domestic helpers, in Europre, U.S., Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere. It is not uncommon to find families where wives, daughters and mothers are not at home. They have gone overseas to work as domestic helpers. I know of a friend whose wife works as a domestic helper overseas for years on end. There are many others.
My wife and I don’t have a foreign helper. But we are part of an NGO reaching out to such as these. We have first hand knowledge of the conditions these domestics worked under. Apart from the difficult working conditions, they also suffer psychologically from homesickness, loneliness, cultural shock and the like. Many of them come from rural and farming environment and have never been to a city before, even back home.
Some who are Muslims have the horrible option of either eating pork or just plain rice and sardines. On top of this, some are unfortunate enough to be abused; physically or sexually, or both. Given a choice, many would want to go home tomorrow if not for the money they need to send back to feed hungry mouths.
Needless to say, employers also have their fair share of painful experiences. Take my mother-in-law for instance. She has by now employed six or seven Indonesian helpers. There is nothing much for them to do and there are no children to look after. Basically all the helper has to do is to be a companion and carer to her and keep her house tidy and neat. She’s really generous to a fault and spoils them thoroughly.
And what did she get in return? Without exception, they all stole her money and eventually ran away. One even regularly sneaked her lover into the house in the wee hours of the morning. It was only after she ran away did we find this out from neighbours and evidence of safer sex she had left behind.
It really depends on how we look at it. Are we part of the problem or part of a solution? We all know the problem quite well. We don’t have to wait for the government to pass a new law to force us to give our domestic helpers a weekly off day before we can be part of the solution.
On our own, we can easily give our helpers a day off a week for her to do what she would really like; seeing friends, shopping, or just doing nothing and sleeping in.
For Christian employers, the weekly rest day is a divinely mandatory obligation. It is the fourth of the ten commandments to honour the Sabbath Day where the whole household is to cease from work and consecrate it as a holy day. That’s where the word ‘holiday’ comes from. And the Indonesian worker is also part of such a household. She too must stop working on her rest day. If we looked at her closely enough, we would soon discover she too is a human being just like us, made in the image of God and needing a rest day.
Giving our domestic helpers a day off is really a golden opportunity to be compassionate and caring employers. Let’s not wait till the government forces it on us.
