For a start, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) guidelines should be revised.
There should be proper guidelines requiring agents to ensure that employers are not ripped off and that information provided in a maid's bio-data is genuine.
It would be useful to consider the following in attempting to achieve the suggestions cited in Monday's report:
Comparisons: Maids who work in Hong Kong and Taiwan do not have the luxury of their employers footing their loans for them. Instead, they pay the fees related with getting a job in these places upfront and out of their own pocket. It is riskier and financially harder for a Singaporean employer.
He must settle this loan with the agent before he can hire the maid, which could amount to $3,000 or more.
Recovering the amount takes a long time as it is done through partial deductions of a maid's monthly salary.
If the maid does not last a month, the employer must forfeit the entire month's loan payment, even if the maid works for only a day.
An employer loses the outstanding loan amount if he chooses to repatriate the maid instead of transferring her to another employer.
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, if the maid-employer relationship breaks down, the maid must return home and cannot seek a transfer.
Singapore should adopt this practice, in tandem with shifting the burden of a maid's loan to her and her lender. Such changes will end the current practice of recycling poor-performing, maladjusted or untrustworthy maids.
Most employers will not mind paying more for a capable and trustworthy maid.
But let's make it fair for all. It seems quite clear that the only party benefiting here is the agent.
Tjio Lianne (Mdm)
