Malaysians prefer Cambodian, Sri Lankan maids to Indons

FMT Reporters

 | February 18, 2015

PAPA says demand for Indonesian maids dropped 80% even before president Jokowi’s call that they stop coming here as domestic help.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians would be more than happy to employ domestic help from Cambodia and Sri Lanka now that Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has advised his people to stop coming to Malaysia as maids.

Commenting on this was Jeffrey Foo, president of the Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (PAPA), who said employing Indonesian maids had become too expensive anyway as their agents were demanding more than what was agreed to in the stipulated fee structure, the Malaysian Insider reported.

Foo explained that the agreed fee was RM7,800, with RM5,000 going to the Indonesian agent.

“But they are not happy with that. They are demanding up to RM9,000 for their part, so we have been focusing less and less on maids from Indonesia in the last two years,” Foo explained, adding that demand for Indonesian maids had plummeted by 80 per cent during that time frame because of the excessive fees.

Foo also noted that with the current scenario, maid agencies were looking towards the Philippines and Sri Lanka for domestic helpers instead.

“Because the Indonesian agents are asking more, employers have to fork out nearly RM15,000 to apply for a maid, which is ridiculous and akin to exploitation,” Foo explained and added that in comparison, it only cost RM10,000 in upfront fees to get a domestic helper from the Philippines and RM8,000 for a maid from Sri Lanka.

He also said PAPA had appealed to Putrajaya to allow more countries to send their workers here as domestic help in light with the current issues Malaysia faced with Indonesia.

Meanwhile Jokowi has demonstrated his seriousness in stopping his people to come over as domestic help, by instructing his manpower ministry to draw up a roadmap to ensure this new ruling was adhered to.

He also vowed to protect Indonesian workers already in Malaysia by bringing home those without proper documentation besides imposing stricter rules on their employers.