I often wonder what goes through the minds of people, last week we had a young indonesian girl prob around 20yrs old, she came into my office and was sobbing saying that she wanted to run away from her employers house where she was working as a maid, she said the employer did not allow her to eat anything except a dinner time and even then it would be scraps or left overs. She was not allowed to have breakfast, lunch or tea, she had to be up at 5am and was allowed to sleep only after the last person went to bed. The thing that struck me the most was that here she was crying while next to her in the pram sleeping soundly was the employers baby, the silly employer was practically treating the maid as a slave yet they calmly allowed her to look after the child. The maid by this time was in no state to control her emotions and was really letting it rip, she called the maid agency who told her that she HAD to stay there for at least 8 months before they could transfer her out, so she called the indonesian embassy who told her to get in a cab and go to the consulate where a guard would pay her cabfare. She was all set to go and leave the baby alone in the house, her fear of her employer was so great that she wold have just abandoned the child, we talked her out if it and she waited till the owners came home and when they left for dinner with the baby, she ran for her life.
Needless to say the employers got a new maid asap and today that maid ran away too. One day they are goimg to get a maid who will take it out on the baby and maybe then they will learn their lesson, that the maid they treat so badly is someones baby too.
Its disgusting to read in the papers who say things like these maids dont deserve days off or that the money we pay them is more then a kings ransome, treat them as people, treat them as living beings who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not scorn and abuse. I think that people who abuse maids should become maids as punishment for at least 3 months instead of gong to jail, that will teach them.
