Foreign domestic workers such as "Sharon" (Loan from remittance firm traps maid in web of debt, June 12) do need protection against getting into a position where they are saddled with such high interest that they find it difficult, if not impossible, to repay the loan.

Sharon's situation, as described, highlights a basic problem that encourages some domestic workers to seek loans, on whatever terms they can obtain - that is, the recruitment cost that most workers still bear.

Sharon is identified as a Filipina. Under her country's regulations, women recruited as domestic workers should not be charged any fee for their recruitment.

Under Singapore's regulations, a domestic worker should not be charged more than two months' salary for a two-year contract when first recruited, and yet Sharon was not due to receive any salary for the first six months of her employment.

Clearly, there is something wrong either at the Philippines' end or here in Singapore when this worker and others have to pay four months more of recruitment fees than the maximum legal amount.

It is hoped that there will be more cooperation in the future between the domestic workers' countries of origin and Singapore in bringing down unreasonable and sometimes illegal recruitment fees charged to these women.

If recruitment fees payable by the worker were eliminated or reduced, we would see fewer workers seeking loans in the early months of their employment in response to family requests, since they would have money from their earnings at their disposal by the end of their second or third month in Singapore at the latest.

Deborah Desloge Fordyce

President

Transient Workers Count Too