Indonesia's dilemma over foreign domestic helpers

Article: Indonesia's dilemma over foreign domestic workers

Summary:
During a recent visit to Malaysia, Indonesian President Joko Wisdodo expressed shame when discussing the issue of Indonesian women working overseas as foreign domestic workers (FDWs).

Thoughts on this issue:

Indonesian women have less rights than men in Indonesia which results in them being less educated. Thus, also with their limited education and poor family financial issues, they have less choices of jobs. Many of them are influenced then to become domestic helpers also known as maids, at foreign countries.

From the perspective of the leaders of Indonesia, I believe the reason why they would want to reduce or fully prevent women in their country to work as domestic helpers at other countries is due to national pride. To be honest, who would want a country of women who work as maids in other countries? This national pride not only affects the moral as a country itself, it also affects their reputation as a developing country. The country might feel ashamed when this topic is being raised up.

However, in the perspective of the women in Indonesia, they willingly go overseas to become domestic helpers in foreign countries is because of their family financial difficulty. Many of them who willingly work as maids are poor back in their hometown. Who would want to be alone in a foreign country, separated by seas and oceans to work as a domestic helper should they be financially capable? With little education and rights as women, they willingly become domestic helpers in foreign countries so as to lessen the burden of their financial difficulty back at home.

Looking from the perspective of employees, I believe that most Singaporeans would prefer to have a domestic helper at home to aid in the house chores. Many Singaporeans, especially adults, are working full time. They may not have time for the young and old back at home. Thus, they employ domestic helpers to aid in the taking care of these 2 age groups. However, this has resulted in the bonding of a family's relationship such as a child and parents. The child spends much of his/her time being alone with the domestic helper. This would allow them to be more attached to their domestic helper than their very own parents.

In our perspective, given a choice, we will not reject having a domestic helper at home. With a domestic helper to help out with the preparing of dinner, house chores like cleaning up the dishes and house, we will have more personal time or even time spent with our family. But a domestic helper should not affect the bonding between a child and parent.

Wong WeiNing (18)
Cheng Jing Wen (26)