14 Oktober 2009

Talks on maid issue ongoing

2009/10/15

NST online

PETALING JAYA: Negotiations between Malaysia and Indonesia on the issue of maids are ongoing, with no conclusive agreement reached.

"There are several issues that need to be ironed out before we can wrap up negotiations," Labour director-general Datuk Ismail Abdul Rahim said yesterday.

Indonesia has temporarily halted the sending of its maids to Malaysia pending a more comprehensive deal, particularly in terms of salary and work conditions.

He said the central issue that Malaysia was most concerned with was the recruitment process. "Improper and unregulated means of recruitment committed by unscrupulous people or individuals masquerading as registered agents are often the culprits who contribute to the problems faced by the maids."


On the salary issue, Ismail said Malaysia's stand was that it could not be fixed and should depend on the agreement between the worker and employer.

At present, the salary varied from RM400 to RM650, depending on the experience and mutual agreement between maid and employer.

Meanwhile, Ismail said Malaysia was looking at recruiting Muslim maids from Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand to provide more choices to employers and help reduce dependency on Indonesia.

To date, there were 251,255 registered maids here, of whom 230,141 were Indonesians, he said at a panel discussion on strategies to support proposed international standards for domestic workers. -- Bernama

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