Domestic Work in Malasya

Walls of Silence and Late Twentieth Century Representations of the Foreign Female Domestic Worker: The Case of Filipina
and Indonesian Female Servants in Malaysia Author(s): Christine B. N. Chin Source: International Migration Review, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 353-385 Published by: The Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2547224 . Accessed: 19/07/2011 17:23
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Walls Century Female Filipina in
of
Silence Representations Domestic and
and
Late of Worker:
Twentieth the The Female Foreign Case of
Indonesian
Servants
Malaysia1
Christine B. N. Chin American University This article analyzes the distinct ways in which public walls of silence continue to surround the absence of labor rights and benefits for foreign female domestic workers in the receiving country of Malaysia. Key state and nonstate actors involved in regulating and/or encouraging Filipina female domestic workers' migration to, and employment and Indonesian of in, Malaysia are identified. It is argued that the actions and perceptions and receiving state officials, middle-class and labor-sending employers, from private domestic employment agencies have had the representatives effect of representing female domestic workers Filipina and Indonesian as economic and pariahs, girlsoldiers, criminal-prostitutes respectively Taken individually and collectively, such slaves, and/or commodities. obscure the fact that foreign female domestic workers are representations workers who ought to be protected by labor legislation. In the late twentieth century, the rapidly industrializing country of Malaysia host to a growing number of Filipina and Indonesian female domestic plays workers2 - from a few hundred in the 1970s to approximately 70,000 by 1994.3 Malaysian Malay, Chinese and Indian demands for foreign female domestic workers are fueled by sustained economic growth that expands the middle classes while offering greater employment for, and opportunities the job expectations of, working class Malaysian women (Jamilah, heightening 1992; Lim, 1987; Ong, 1987).
ll wish to thank James H. Mittelman, Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Diane Sineerman, Deborah Brautigam, and the anonymous reviewers for comments of earlier versions or this article. 2In this article, "foreign female domestic worker," "foreign domestic servant," and "foreign servant," are used interchangeably. 3The figures presented are not official tallies. The number of foreign female domestic workers during the 1970s is a "guesstimate"of newspaper reports. The 1994 estimate is culled from my interviews of the Philippine and Indonesian labor attaches in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There are no readily accessible or available official statistics on the total number of Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers working legally in the country. ?1997 by the Centerfor MigrationStudiesof New York All rightsreserved. 0197-9183/97/3102.0118 IMR Volume 31 Number 2 (Summer 1997): 0353-0385 353
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Together with what appears to be the exponential increase in Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers is another phenomena that can be discerned readily from a cursory examination of major Malaysian newspapers such as New Straits Times, The Stan and Malay Mail Since the mid- to late 1980s, when the of foreign female domestic Malaysian state began regulating the inmigration domestic workers, newsprint reports have portrayed Filipina and Indonesian workers as house thieves and prostitutes on the one hand and, on the other, as victims of horrific forms of sexual and physical assault by their employers. As the reports graphically detail how some foreign female domestic workers are abused of other foreign servants' by their Malaysian employers, little is mentioned to sleep on kitchen floors, along corridors, or in storage rooms complaints: having with no ventilation; working eighteen-hour days with few rest periods or even rest days; and not having adequate meals. These relatively less horrific forms of employer abuse are documented mosdy in the reports of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with foreign female domestic workers' welfare in Malaysia and other labor-receiving countries (APDC, 1989; Asian Migrant Forum, 1992; Issues in Gender and Development, 1993). In Malaysia, NGOs such as Tenaganita and the International Council on of Population Management Programmes investigate migrant working condi? tions and lobby the state for migrant worker rights and benefits. Their efforts to break down public walls of silence surrounding the absence of labor rights and benefits for foreign female domestic workers have met with little success. The inmigration of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers continues unabated while domestic service remains unlegislated. The presence and quality of life of Filipina, Indonesian, and even Sri Lankan, Turkish, Caribbean, and/or other female domestic workers in labor-receiving countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America elicit issues. Thus far, research has ranged from the important theoretico-normative of migrant female domestic labor relationship between the transnationalization and the changing international division of labor (Lycklama a'Niejeholt, 1992; Phizacklea, 1983; Sassen-Koob, 1981) to the persistent absence of labor rights and benefits for foreign female domestic workers in receiving countries (Mid? dle East Watch, Particularly labor migration has become a and long-term policy response of Asian sending states to socioeconomic and stabilization political pressures brought about by structural adjustment of workers cushions against rising unemployment policies. The outmigration and declining state resources for social welfare programs. The continual flow of migrant remittances sustains foreign exchange earnings of labor-sending countries, and it is expected that migrant returnees will contribute eventually to modernization 1989; by practicing new skills acquired overseas (APDC, Appleyard, 1989; CCA-URM, 1990). 1992; Weinert, 1991). since the early 1980s, low-wage
Filipina and Indonesian
Female Servants in Malaysia
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At the labor-receiving end, the inmigration of female servants is a "partial" of state efforts to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the middle classes: low-wage foreign migrant domestic labor offsets the rising costs of childcare services beyond the home (Arat-Koc, 1989; Bakan and Stasiulis, 1995; Colen, 1990). Ifet, domestic service in most labor-receiving countries remains unlegislated because of the patriarchal belief that housework is unproductive work. Intersecting this belief is that paid housework today increasingly is performed by women from different racial-ethnic backgrounds and nationalities (Weinert, 1991). To a certain extent, it can be said that foreign female domestic workers are solution caught in the nexus of capitalist-patriarchal-racialized ideologies underpinning economic the household, national, restructuring processes that interpenetrate regional and global levels (Bakan and Stasiulis, 1995; Chang and Ling, 1996). The need to extend labor rights and benefits to this category of domestic servants does not rank high among the priorities of many labor-receiving states that are in the processes of negotiating between demands within and beyond geopolitical borders, primarily because servants are poor women from different this implicit rationale also Conceivably, groups and nationalities. at the societal level, especially given the relative absence of for the legal protection demands of foreign female large-scale organized domestic workers. (For a compilation of newsprint reports of women's working in Asia, Middle East and Europe, see especially ARPILM, conditions 1991.) While the identification of capitalist-patriarchal-racialized ideologies offers a viable answer to why public walls of silence exist, we know little of how such walls are constructed and maintained in everyday life. How do capitalist-patriarchal-racialized find their expression on the subjective level in a ideologies manner that allows the continued absence of labor rights and benefits for female domestic workers? foreign is discernible One way in which this question can be answered is to identify some of the of migrant female key state and nonstate actors in the transnationalization domestic of and actions toward the domestic labor, and their perceptions workers. What kind of relationships do the actors have with foreign female domestic workers? Can and do their perceptions and actions represent foreign servants in particular ways that contribute to constructing and maintaining walls of silence? If so, how and why? This article offers an analysis of the perceptions and actions of labor-sending and receiving state officials, middle-class from employers, and representatives who are responsible for employment private domestic agencies (DOMs) and/or encouraging domestic workers' regulating Filipina and Indonesian to and employment in Malaysia. Their perceptions and actions migration on the servants in unique ways depending represent Filipina and Indonesian role of and the interest(s) that each actor holds in foreign female domestic workers' migration to and employment in Malaysia. racial-ethnic
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From the perspective of labor-sending state officials based in Malaysia, Filipina soldiers "deployed" to battle and Indonesian domestic workers are economic against economic crisis. From the perspective of Malaysian state officials, foreign and pariahs to be controlled for female domestic workers are criminal-prostitutes social order. From the perspective of middle-class employers, foreign servants are items purchased to symbolize status and/or girl-slaves to be controlled. From the to be traded for perspective of DOMs, foreign servants mosdy are commodities Taken individually and collectively, such representations of foreign female profit. domestic workers obfuscate the fact that Filipina and Indonesian migrant women are workers who deserve to be protected by labor legislation. Data for this article are based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between January and June 1994 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and constitute part of a larger study of the relationship between the Malaysian state, the changing form and content of contemporary domestic service, and the expansion of exportin the multiethnic oriented development country (Chin, forthcoming). To facilitate analysis, the first part discusses the fieldwork process from which for this article. The second part presents the political of Malaysian development that led to the inmigration of and Indonesian domestic workers. This is followed by a brief profile material context female domestic experiences workers, whose narratives describe at the hands of the state and nonstate actors
was drawn economic
Filipina of Filipina and Indonesian their dehumanizing in their involved perceptions employers, THE
and employment mechanisms. inmigration Finally, the and actions of officials from labor-sending and receiving states, and DOMs are analyzed. FIELDWORK PROCESS
ETHNOGRAPHIC
It is important to stress that research on foreign female domestic workers in of state officials Malaysia is difficult at best because of the overall unwillingness to openly discuss labor inmigration and existing working conditions. policies In the initial month several state of fieldwork, I was informed by Malaysian activists and officials that the Home Affairs Ministry (arguably the most
powerful ministry and one that is controlled direcdy by the Prime Minister) had imposed a "gag order" prohibiting official interviews on low-wage labor - no was offered in its place. The conventional inmigration explanation wisdom was that the less publicity on the topic, the better it would be for political stability and economic growth in the multiethnic country. Malaysian employers, Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers, and DOM also were known to be reluctant to discuss their views. NGOs representatives and students of conducting at Universiti or were in the process Malaya, who had conducted research surveys of foreign female domestic workers, complained
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in compiling on various aspects of low-wage information foreign migrant domestic labor in the country. I elected instead to carry out multimethod research - archival ethnographic and unstructured interviews. Unofficial interviews of analysis, observation, and the Philippine and Indonesian labor attaches were Malaysian policymakers to ascertain their views. Malaysian state officials, in particular, conducted consented to interviews only under the expressed agreement of anonymity. Interviews of employers occurred in their houses, country clubs, restaurants, offices and, on several occasions, brokerage firms - Le.> wherever the respon? dents could fit interviews into their schedules. I began with my social and of the difficulty network and, over time, the snowball approach produced 68 professional Many times, a respondent either would organize a "get together" respondents. with other friends in her/his house or invite me to a social function as a way to facilitate research, e.g., an employer insisted that this method would "make life easier for you, so that you don't need to call them one by one." Although I did not make any efforts to single out male or female employers, the majority of respondents were female. Husbands of female employers, even when present during the interviews, deferred to their wives in discussing "maids," and would interject to emphasize or add what they thought were important points in narrating the processes involved in hiring and evaluating the performance of foreign servants. While I succeeded in obtaining Malaysian employers' views of foreign female domestic workers, only in rare cases was I given permission to speak with the servants before or after interviews with employers. Even so, the employers were always within a comfortable listening distance. The "ethnographer's path" (Sanjek, led me to interviews of foreign female domestic workers in churches, malls, supermarkets, pasar malam (open air night markets), bus/taxi shopping stands and, on rare occasions, DOM houses that served as transitional points for Filipina and Indonesian servants upon arrival into and prior to departure from the country (the houses are used also by servants who are given rest days but who are prohibited from interacting with the public at large). The names of employers and foreign domestic workers in this article are because of the respondents' pseudonyms requests for anonymity. Filipina and Indonesian servants were afraid of negative repercussions from employers, 1990:398) and the Malaysian Immigration while employers be? DOMs, Department, lieved that if and when any portion of the fieldwork was made public, so too would their identities and their narratives of foreign servants. The interviews were not tape recorded; notes were taken either with permission during the interview or immediately afterward. The ethnographic fieldwork produced, in of Malaysian Malay, Chinese and Indian interviews sum, 68 unstructured and 136 unstructured interviews of Filipina and Indonesian female employers, domestic workers.
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DOM representatives would be one of the most challenging Interviewing of the fieldwork. First, I obtained a list of licensed DOMs provided to aspects Department. potential employers by the Immigration Having been forewarned I nevertheless called a few DOMs NGOs of DOMs' uncooperative nature, by to request interviews. My requests were denied almost instantaneously. Upon learning that some friends were thinking of hiring foreign servants, we sat down and devised a list of questions for DOMs such as the fees charged for processing an employer's application form and the difference in the cost involved in hiring a Filipina as opposed to an Indonesian domestic worker. In my role as a I "interviewed" via telephone and/or in-person repre? prospective employer, sentatives from twenty DOMs. The key actors involved in Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers' in Malaysia are labor-sending and receiving state migration to and employment and DOMs. officials, employers, FOREIGN MIGRANT WORKERS IN MALAYSIA DEVELOPMENT AND EXPORT-ORIENTED
from British Malaysia is a multiethnic country that achieved independence colonial rule in 1957. A key colonial legacy left unaddressed until the early 1970s was the identification of ethnicity with economic function and geographic space, i.e., real and perceived Chinese control of the economy in a country in which - the dominant ethnic group - remained Malays politically and numerically mosdy poor and segregated in the rural areas (Means, 1976; Saw, 1988). Interethnic contestations over access to, and the distribution of, political and economic resources in 1969 led to the "May 13" ethnic riots between of the Malaysian Malays and non-Malays, namely the Chinese. A consequence riots was the implementation of the New Economic Policy 1971-1990 (NEP), a twenty year state-led development program with a two-pronged objective of poverty and restructuring eradicating society in a way that disassociated ethnicity with economic function and geographic space. The NER in essence, was an affirmative action program stipulating Malay quotas in education, finance, housing, and so forth (Lim, 1985; Jedudason, 1989). employment, The state's intent was to transform the predominandy rural Malays into a modern urbanized community (Malaysia, 1971). During the 1970s, two key factors helped offset some of the negative effects of ethnic-specific employment Malaysia: the transnaquotas in multiethnic of capital and production tionalization the relocation which witnessed of countries (Froebel, Kreye and Heinrichs, production plants to developing 1980) and successive increases in the price of oil and other natural resource commodities. With seemingly unlimited sources of revenue, the Malaysian state was relatively unobstructed in restructuring the economy and society.
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and domestic service declined Local low-wage labor supply in agriplantation as young Malaysian men and women found urban employment opportunities in state and privately-owned businesses. Between 1978 and 1985, the declining the viability of natural to undermine supply of low-wage labor threatened in the hence the economy's competitiveness resource-based export industries, and global markets. The rubber industry reported severe labor short? regional ages that resulted in the loss of over 50,000 tons of rubber or RM123 million RM2.5 to US$1). (at the 1994 approximate exchange rate of RinggitMalaysia The palm oil industry faced similar problems (Pillai, 1992:8). It was reported that young Malaysian men and women increasingly refused to work in agriplantations because of low wages and bad working conditions; differentials between the industrial and agricultural sectors were identi? wage fied as a major cause of declining local labor supply (Pillai, 1992:8). In 1979, 100,000 illegal Indonesian and Malaysian newspapers reported approximately Filipino migrant plantation workers in Johor and Sabah. Labor unions, and several Malay and non-Malay mainstream and opposition political party mem? that the state put an end to the bers, responded to the reports by demanding of foreign workers. Critics argued that illegal migrant illegal inmigration workers were threats to national security, e.g., Indonesian "communist" infil? tration and covert Philippine-Christian activities (Dorall, 1989). proselytizing Despite protests, the state refused to regulate or to ban illegal migrants, asserting instead that migrant workers "were necessary to fill the manpower needs" (New Straits Times, February 17, 1981). The initial refusal to regulate or to ban illegal migrant labor was due to two feasible to undermine the NEP key reasons. First, it was not politically pro-Malay urbanization policy by openly encouraging rural Malays to work in or in domestic service. In the case of private and state-owned agriplantations the agricultural sector, the irony was that state owned and managed agriplan? tations were expected to increase employment of some rural opportunities Malays. Second, the Malay-dominated within the context of a multiethnic state lacked the economic justification society to officially open the country's doors: "Malaysian officials note that the country has a 6 percent immigration rate; hence there are locals available to do estate work, but they unemployment are too choosy'" (Asiaweek, December 19, 1980).
Implicit in non-Malay public criticism of the state's refusal to ban illegal migrant workers, especially Indonesians (many of whom were the ethnocultural cousins of Malays), was the belief that state authorities wanted to increase covertly the Malay population at the political, economic and social expense of the Chinese and "From the very beginning, non-Malay objections to the Indian communities: large-scale and uncontrolled presence of Indonesian migrant workers were based less on economic reasons ... but more on their fears that the Indonesians, being Muslims and culturally almost identical to the Malays, would in fact stay as
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number" (Dorall, immigrants and numerically increase the Malay population if the state officially banned the inmigration of illegal Yet, 1989:299-300). Indonesian then the low-wage labor woes of the agriplantation workers, industry, of which several state agencies were major participants, would be left unaddressed. Newspaper reports of the growing presence of illegal Indonesian migrant workers highlighted a potential clash between the state, non-Malays, and even Malays who objected to the presence of illegal Indonesian migrant workers there were approximately to 600,000 300,000 by 1983, illegal Indonesian The state acted 12,1993). migrants in Malaysia {New Straits Times, November the 1984 Medan Pact with Indonesia to control illegal migration. by signing of Indonesian Specific procedures were delineated for the legal inmigration workers {see Aziuafo., 1987). Three years later, the pact was rescinded because it could not effectively control the inmigration of illegal Indonesian workers; considered the legal route too time-consuming, and migrants complicated, 1990). cosdy {see Guinness, As far as domestic service was concerned, the decline in local servants was exacerbated as young working class Malaysian Malay, Chinese and gready Indian women were attracted, and even encouraged by the state, to the work of sewing garments and assembling electronic chips in factories owned by transnational 1992; Lim, 1987; Ong, 1987). The (Jamilah, corporations relatively higher wage and status factory work with regulated work environ? ments and specified rest days caused a major exodus from the home to the factory. Similar to the situation faced by state and privately owned agriplantaand would-be of domestic servants tions, Malaysian employers employers solved their household labor problems by illegally hiring low-wage female countries of the Philippines migrant domestic workers from the neighboring and Indonesia (APDC, 1989; Dorall and Paramasivam, 1992; Pillai, 1992). By the early 1980s, as Asian states such as the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan responded to changes in global economic structures and processes by openly integrating labor outmigration policies into national develop? ment plans (Dias, 1993:2), Malaysia did not follow suit. Instead, the country was on its way to becoming a major importer of illegal migrants even though it was and is commonly known that Malaysians in the state of Johor commute across the causeway to work on the neighboring island of Singapore. During the skilled and semiskilled construc? Malaysian economic recession of 1985-1987, tion workers left the country to work for substantially higher wages in the booming East Asian construction industry. Yet, Malaysian state authorities neither openly supported nor prohibited the outmigration of workers to East Asia. Patrick Pillai (1992:25) offers two reasons for the absence of an official labor outmigration policy. He argues that, in relative terms, Malaysia did not experience "serious economic or unemployment problems," and that most of
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workers were Malaysian Chinese. The latter reason implies within the context of the NEI5 it would not have been politically feasible that, for the Malay-dominated state to be perceived as actively promoting the of Malaysian Chinese (as if to be rid of or, at the very least, to outmigration reduce the Chinese population). As the Malaysian economy began to recover from the 1985-1987 economic from all ethnic groups openly complained of the increas? recession, employers ing difficulty in hiring Malaysian workers for domestic service, agriplantation and construction work. State authorities were pressured to acknowledge offi? the economy's demands for low-wage foreign migrant labor and to begin cially formal regulation of labor inmigration (Malaysia, 1988:2). The topic of foreign migrant labor remains politically sensitive. On the one to keep the immigration doors open to foreign hand, the state is compelled migrant workers as a way to subsidize the low-wage labor demands of the On the other hand, it is feared that in the event of an economic economy. the presence of hundreds of thousands of foreign migrant workers downturn, could destabilize interethnic relations. There are no available official data on the number of foreign migrant workers in Malaysia. In 1991, it was estimated that foreign migrant workers comprised 17.5 percent (or approximately of the total labor force of 6.8 million (Pillai, 1992:14). 1,200,920) The inmigration of low-wage as the foreign migrant workers continues Malaysian state pursues Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020), the catch-all phrase for the expansion of export-oriented as the most viable path to development establishing a modern developed Malaysian economy and society by that year (Ahmad FILIPINA Sarji Abdul AND Hamid, 1993). FEMALE
the construction
INDONESIAN
DOMESTIC
WORKERS servants Filipina at least Indone? little to
Filipina and Indonesian servants interviewed were young, single, and came from rural areas of South and Central Luzon island in the Philippines and the island of Java in Indonesia. Almost 90 percent of the Filipina respondents (80 out of 89 Filipina women) only had a secondary school education as opposed to a tertiary education, while approximately 90 percent of Indonesian respondents (42 out of 47 Indone? sian women) were single as opposed to married or divorced. In the absence of long-term systematic and extensive research of foreign female domestic workers
There is scarce in-depth knowledge of Filipina and Indonesian female who have worked or are working in Malaysia. A late 1980s study of servants showed that most of the women were single and had received a tertiary education (Samuel, 1987-88). In a relatively recent study of sian servants, most of the respondents were married or divorced with no formal education (Zakiyah, 1991-92). In my 1994 ethnographic fieldwork, approximately 85 percent of 136
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in the country, the age, marital status and education level discrepancies between respondents in my study and that of the two other studies may be indicative of a growing belief among DOMs and employers that inexperienced young single Filipina and Indonesian women are easier to train and control than married or older women with more life experience. The advice of one employer to her friend who was agonizing over the selection of a foreign servant best captured the general sentiment of employers on the most suitable and produc? tive servants: "Get them young, get them stupid, and train them." Prior to migration, rural Filipinas farmed land with their families, while their urban counterparts worked as office clerks, street hawkers, school teachers, and most of whom only received a primary school nurses. Indonesian women, either were farmers {kerja kebun) or were not employed education, {duduk dirumah saja, tak buat apa-apa>). The two exceptions were an Indonesian university student who had to leave school because her father passed away and a government worker in Jakarta who filed a sexual harassment complaint against her male superior, only to lose her job shortly thereafter. Married women's reasons for migration from the stemmed Filipina and Indonesian need to escape socioeconomic powerlessness. Morokvasic (1983, 1984) argues, in her research of women in international migration, that what is generally perceived as personal reasons for migration, in fact, are structurally determined. To be sure, the married respondents' reasons for migration are reflective of the consequences of capitalist expansion and/or patri? archal oppression. In one case, capitalist expansion dislocated and disrupted rural social relations, in part, by undermining the respondent's husband's real and perceived ability to care for his family. A consequence of the practice of patriarchal ideology helped to delimit how and why another respondent, whose mother-inlaw failed to empathize with her problems, felt that she had no other alternative but to migrate in order to escape shame and humiliation, aside from economic poverty (see, especially, Hagul and Suardiman, 1986). on the other hand, cited two major interrelated Single migrant women, reasons for working in Malaysia - higher pay and a more "comfortable" life. A comfortable life continues to be the picture largely conjured by DOM states who travel to villages and urban squatter representatives in labor-sending settlements with promises to the women of working in wealthy households complete with "nice" employers and the latest modern amenities. Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers insisted over and over again that DOMs were proficient in the art of lying to potential female migrants and their families. Mathilde: They [DOMs] come and tell us... give us so much sweet talk... you can have a good life and a very nice life overseas, good pay, television, videorecorder... . Ruth: They told me fantastic stories about making money.... They [stories] are not true. Deduct this, deduct that... at the end, no more money in my pocket.
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Angelina: They are all the same, they cheat and they lie. They will do and say anything to make money. Mathilde and Angelina added that:
Mathilde: Agency staff holds your neck. They pick you up at the airport, take your passport, and you don't see it anymore until you leave the country. Angelina: I'm not afraid of my employer. I'm afraid of the agency. They hold your passport. One of the Malaysian state regulations insists that Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers must retain possession of their legal travel documents (The DOMs keep Filipinas' passports and Star, January 25, 1994). Nonetheless, Indonesian women's Sijil Perjalanan Laksana Paspot (SPLP issued by the and Malaysia) Indonesian state for exclusive travel between Indonesia as insurance against women who run away from their employers (presumably to or to work for different employers). themselves Contrary to this prostitute state regulation on foreign female domestic workers' travel docu? particular relations between employers and DOMs ments, contractual stipulate that either the agency or the employer retains the domestic worker's legal travel The following is part of a model contract given to me by a DOM: document. is [sic] in safe custody "The Client is to ensure that all the maid's documents and to be kept at all times by the Client." Filipina and Indonesian servants were equally critical of Malaysian employ? ers. In the women's narratives, their rejection of the degree of dehumanization that inheres in the exchange of wages for housework in Malaysia is captured in the frequent use of the slave metaphor. Late one morning church service, a group of six Filipinas joined my conversation informant on the working conditions of foreign servants. after a Sunday with a Filipina
Felicitas: We are human. We have the same kind of heart and body, why do they treat us like we are not human? Auntie [Felicitas' aunt]: I swallow only because of money. If you have a brain, you must know that you have a human right to fight. She cannot pay me RM500 and then treat me like a slave. Lourdes: They get my blood, you know, for the medical exam [she demonstrates with her fingers the many "inches" of blood that were taken from her]. When you take my blood, how can you treat me like a slave? Maria Rosa: See, they don't think we are human. We are like slaves to them. They take our sweat but they don't give us respect. Ruth: Chinese employers are very bad. Big house, big car, big wallet, but they give us nothing. Only want to use us like we are slaves. Pilan Do I look like a slave? Please tell me why Malaysians treat us so badly?
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In some cases, deplorable working conditions can and do leave Filipina and domestic workers with little option but to run away from their The phenomenon of "run away" servants continues to be inter? employers. and state authorities in terms of foreign preted by many employers, DOMs, female domestic workers' desire to earn more money working illegally as Indonesian or even prostitutes. Many Filipina and Indonesian women did not consider the Malaysian state or their respective embassies as eager to, and/or effective in, resolving employer-do? mestic worker disputes. In fact, frequent Immigration and Police raids of public places known as migrant worker "hang-outs" have had the effect of reinforcing that the Malaysian state is intent on foreign domestic workers' perceptions like cattle," a phrase used by a Filipina who, together "herding [domestic workers] with several hundred of her compatriots after a Sunday church service in 1994, was rounded up and taken to the Immigration Department's headquarters. The official explanation for the raid was the need to stop Filipinas from operating hawker stalls without business licenses and from prostituting themselves {New Straits Times, March 28, 1994). Some Filipina domestic workers who were detained informed me that they had to spend many hours (some even stayed over night) at the Immigration Department headquarters as they waited for their employers to bring them back to the workplace. The humiliating and dehumanizing experience of being detained by the Immigration Department left the women in tears, fearful for their lives and their livelihood. The Philippine state publicly denounced the raid and threatened to reduce the outmigration of Filipina servants to Malaysia {The Star, April 14, 1994). DOM interviewed after the raid insisted that they had not representatives any difficulties in bringing Filipina servants into the country. experienced Prior to the raid, a Filipina servant, Eva, consoled her friends who were of long work days with no rest periods, by insisting that "the law" complaining and the Philippine embassy were on their side: "We have contracts. We show the employer the contracts. They cannot do anything to us. We will tell the embassy. We can read. We know the law." This small measure of potential protection that the embassy could offer was criticized gready by a fellow compatriot Lita, who replied: "The embassy? They cannot do anything. They don't care. \bu go now and see what they'll do for you? Nothing! If I have a problem, I won't go there." What emerged from Filipina and Indonesian women's narratives of their was the desire to be perceived and treated as human beings experiences deserving of respect. Instead, many found themselves struggling to retain some semblance of dignity. Elsewhere, I have discussed in detail the kinds of material and symbolic acts of protest and resistance carried out by foreign female domestic absence protest workers to redefine of state intervention and resistance their working conditions and identities in the on their behalf. Suffice to say here that acts of and soiling employers' possesrange from footdragging hawkers
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sions with
menstrual
disassociate migrant and trivial inconsequential intervention on behalf of foreign and Indonesian women
blood, women
to adopting different dress and demeanor that from the image of the maid-slave. However such acts may appear, in the absence of state servants these acts did allow some to redefine and nonverbally Filipina the length of
successfully work days and their identities. Unlike the majority of Filipina and Indonesian Ami, environment an Indonesian domestic
female domestic workers, was so disillusioned with her working worker, that she made a promise to herself to forbid her younger sister to
work in Malaysia: I will never do this again. I will not renew my contract. I told my cousin [who was on his way back to Indonesia] to tell my mother that my sister must not come here to work as a servant [pembantu rumah[. I will make sure that she does not come over. Of interest is why the majority of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers fail to convey their negative migratory and employment experiences back to friends and/or family members in Indonesia and the Philippines. Ami and Margaret (a Filipina informant) reasoned that the women would "lose face" if they did so. Indeed, Caridad Tharan, an activist rights, makes a similar argument that: of Filipina domestic worker
The desire [of Filipina servants] to belong to the "in" group of balikbayan or the maka-abroad is strong. It means attaining a certain status or prestige among village folks and countrymen as a whole. . . . He or she is someone who after a year or two of work overseas comes back with a stereo, video recorder, gold jewelry, imported food, apparel, household goods, etc. Hence, translating this image into a reality becomes a goal among many of the maids. (1989:276) stream continuing outmigrating contributes to sustaining the economic The of foreign livelihood female domestic workers and/or
of their families
conspicuous consumption. Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers remitted a portion of their salaries, anywhere from one-fifth to one-half of monthly 1990). The earnings, whenever possible to their families (see CCA-URM, most frequent avenue of remittances was that of family members (especially in the case of Indonesian servants) or friends who were on their way back to the countries of origin. Filipina and Indonesian servants said that remittances were used to purchase anything from basic necessities (e.g., food and clothing) and construction materials for house renovations, to the most modern consumer items such as cameras and compact disk players. To be sure, the brief profile of Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers elicits more questions than answers. For example, while it is known that foreign female domestic workers migrate for a variety of reasons that are not entirely economic-based, additional research is required to investigate the
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members affect migraways in which migrant family or household 1984). processes (^Trager, tion-for-employment decisionmaking That which has emerged from Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers' narratives, however, is the identification of key actors involved in different stages different of female domestic migration to, and employment experiences in Malaysia.
IN FILIPINA AND INDONESIAN ACTORS DOMESTIC IN WORKERS9 MIGRATION TO AND EMPLOYMENT MALAYSIA Labor-Sending State Perspective
The perceptions and actions of the Philippine and Indonesian labor attaches were important, especially since they admitted that it was their responsibility to report the demands for and the working conditions of female nationals back to their home countries. The labor-attaches, both of whom were men, only offered economic reasons as the main cause of female labor migration. They of the Philippines and Indo? respectively argued that the sluggish economies nesia, coupled with the relatively higher wages offered in Malaysia, were of their female nationals. responsible for the outmigration During the interviews, the most frequendy used word in relation to foreign female domestic workers was "deployment." It is, to be sure, a term most often used in reference to the preparation and execution of intrastate and interstate wars. Increasingly, it is favored by many academicians in and policymakers discussions of labor outmigration policies. The word "deployment" conjures images of female migrants sent abroad by the Philippine and Indonesian states for the purposes of combating economic crises {see, especially, Enloe, 1989). Competition between the Philippine and Indonesian to promote their female nationals as domestic representatives servants in Malaysia was evident in the interviews. Below are examples of the male interviewees' of their womenfolk. perceptions Our women give less problems than maids from other countries . . . you wont get any problems if you hire our maids, unlike the problems with ... maids. ... women maintain the edge in the domestic service market because they are educated, they work harderand they are better trained,which is why employerspreferthem. I asked if male nationals could travel abroad to work as domestic in the negative. Instead of identifying servants, the answers were emphatically the particular gender and the occupational sector(s) for which the Malaysian state only would issue work permits, the labor-attaches explained, in a charac? When teristically gendered manner, that "men are not dexterous not docile," and "men do not know how to do housework enough," properly." "men are
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of female nationals as domestic servants betrays at least one for encouraging overseas employment. It is assumed that to their home countries, would serve as agents of migrants, upon returning change, Le., migrants are expected to "diffuse" (Everett Hagen, 1962, theory via diffusion) new skills training that they learned while of development abroad (Stahl and Habib, 1991; Skeldon, 1992). If state promotion working of female domestic labor is based on women's "natural" of the outmigration to perform housework, then it seems highly unlikely that the women ability could diffuse new housework skills once they return to their home countries. The labor-attache of the structural causes of female labor explanations official The promotion rationale migration were based on the push-pull/equilibrium perspective. This perspec? tive is inherendy flawed since it is premised on the belief that free market forces will bring about equilibrium in population distribution, wages, and ultimately modernization (Massey et al., 1993; Woods, 1982). The theory and practice of transnational labor migration according to an osmotic-like movement masks the role that states and DOMs play in the migration of Filipina and Indonesian servants to Malaysia. is that A key assumption of the push-pull at the microlevel perspective women voluntarily migrate to work as domestic servants. This marginalizes two major issues: 1) domestic service is one of a handful of low-skill and low-wage labor intensive occupations legally open for them in the labor-receiv? open to migrant women were ing state of Malaysia (in 1994, other occupations that of restaurant, plantation and construction work); and 2) as previously of Filipina and Indonesian women is shaped by discussed, the outmigration economic and noneconomic factors. Put blundy, contemporary labor migration is not a natural phenomenon. Rather, as Karl Polanyi (1957) argued, vis-a-vis the emergence of capitalist markets in goods and finance, labor markets also have to be constructed and maintained. According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA): Considered as the crux of the overseas program, the expansion and maintenance of current international labour markets remain the dominant consideration in future plans and policies of the government. Backed by indepth market research activities and joint private and government marketing missions, the systematic development of overseas markets has been intensified and pursued vigorously. (Philippine Migration Review, reprinted in ARPILM, 1991) The POEA statement confirms the labor-sending state's active participation in encouraging the expansion of foreign migrant labor markets. In the attempts to ensure some degree of protection for female nationals, the Philippine state has to negotiate a precarious path between national economic survival and the sensitive issue of maintaining mutual recognition of politico-legal sovereignty in bilateral relations. The POEA has established basic requirements such as base salary and number of rests day per month to
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of Filipina servants. This labor-sending state Malaysian employment insists that work contracts must be signed prior to departure from agency also since the contracts are the country (Tornea and Habana, 1989). Nonetheless, not legally enforceable under the Malaysian legal system, Filipina domestic regulate workers Indonesia generally are given lower salaries and fewer rest days. (In 1994, had not negotiated a standardized contract similar to that of POEA). of addressing domestic workers' complaints The responsibility falls on the
and Indonesian labor-attaches. The Philippine representative tries Philippine to arbitrate relations between Malaysian DOMs and Filipina domestic work? ers. Even though he is not empowered by Malaysian law to discipline abusive employers, he can blacklist DOMs in Kuala Lumpur and Manila by refusing to authenticate \et, he failed to give me an Filipinas' travel documents. number of DOMs that had been blacklisted. approximate The Indonesian on the other hand, informed me that he representative, domestic personally traveled to employers' houses to investigate Indonesian workers' complaints. In several cases of employer-foreign female domestic worker that he cited, he insisted that although Malaysian employers were contestations abusive, Indonesian servants also were lazy. The impression was that the servants' attitudes and/or behavior helped incite employer mistreatment Discussion on ways to circumvent by the labor-attaches and abuse. abuse ultimately took the form of downplaying incidences of abuse, e.g., "Only a few cases"; "Of course, there are bad employers, but it is rare"; and, "They can always come here [to the embassy] or report to us if they are not well treated by their Indeed, in theory, foreign servants who are intent on filing employers." can leave their employers' houses and take a taxi or bus ride to their complaints respective embassies. Foreign servants who are not given any rest days and who are prohibited from using the telephone, receiving visitors, or leaving employ? ers' houses would not be able to do so. There are no official statistics on employer-related abuses. NGOs that lobby for migrant worker rights and/or counsel abused foreign domestic workers argue that there are anywhere between five to ten unreported cases of abuse for case (personal communications with: Agile and Irene every documented Fernandez of Tenaganita, January 26, 1994; Caridad Tharan of International Council on Management of Population Programmes, January 17, 1994; Ivy of Women's Aid Organization, Josiah January 31, 1994). In 1993, the Malay? sian Immigration statistics on employers who were Department published of the Immigration Act 1959/1963. A total prosecuted under Section 56(l)(d) of 174 employers were prosecuted in 1985; by 1992, the number had risen to 978. Employers were prosecuted for various offenses such as "stealing" other foreign employers' servants, employing illegal migrant servants, and failing to renew servants' work permits {Malay Mail, January 13, 1993). State authori-
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ties are silent on the specific number of abuse cases, the nature and frequency of abuse, and/or cases that were prosecuted for abuse. In an atmosphere of competitive placement of female domestic workers, the and Indonesian labor-attaches Philippine implied that although there were incidences of employer-related mistreatment and abuse, nonetheless they were in comparison to the 30,000 and 40,000 statistically insignificant Filipina female domestic workers in Malaysia. The implication Indonesian is that the sacrifice of a few female domestic workers is to be expected for the greater good of the labor-sending country and economy. State Perspective
Labor-Receiving
The Malaysian unemployment rate has continued to decline since the mid to late 1980s: from 6.9 percent in 1985 to approximately 3 percent in 1995. A most obvious benefit of foreign female domestic workers' inmigration is the of working class Malaysian women in the more "pro? increased participation News reports of Malaysian female servants' ductive" sectors of the economy. exodus from the home to the factory floor are reflected in employment statistics according to sex and industry. In 1970, there were 111,017 females to 23 5,377 in the manufacturing males employed industry. By 1990, the number of females employed approximately to 697,300 equaled that of males: 635,500 (Fatima, 1990; ILO, 1994). The exodus was made easier by the consistent refusal of the state authorities to regulate domestic service (Yap, 1984). The Minister of Labor, in response to foreign servants' complaints of mistreatment and abuse in 1987, presented the official rationale for the absence of labor legislation: "We will have problems defining, for instance, their [domestic workers] hours of work and the value of their accommodation if they were to be included in the by employers Act" (New Straits Times, June 23, 1987). Definitional Employment problems became the reason of and for state inaction - the minister's statement implied that housework is not "productive" work. With the establishment of Free Trade Zones in Malaysia since the 1970s, the persistent devaluation of paid house? work contributes to what has been called the "feminization" of manufacturing. Of interest is why the Malaysian state allows Filipina and Indonesian women, as opposed to Indian, Sri Lankan or other foreign female domestic workers, to enter the country. According to a state representative who insisted on anonymity as the precondition to speaking with me, the rationale lies in the level of "economic states of the Philippines cooperation" between Malaysia and the labor-sending and Indonesia. In the last few years, to be sure, there have been high level official talks on establishing "growth triangles" such as the Singapore-Johor-Riau growth triangle in which Singapore supplies the infrastructure and skilled labor, while Johor (Malaysia) and Riau (Indonesia) offer low-wage labor, in addition to land.
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of male domestic servants to Malaysia is stricdy prohibited The inmigration on the grounds that "it would create social problems" (New Straits Times, April When I mentioned that there appeared to be more Indonesian (most 30,1993). of whom are ethnocultural cousins of Malays) than Filipina servants working and illegally in Malaysia, I was told that by the same official that "We legally let more Indonesians in because Indonesians are more skilled at doing domestic .." service. So, it depends on comparative advantage.. of non-Malays that the inmigration of Leaving aside the past accusations the state Indonesian labor increases the headcount of Malays in the population, official's explanation is similar to that of the Philippine and Indonesian That is, a person's ability to perform quality paid housework labor-attaches. depends on gender and nationality. Yet in 1994, the presumably higher-skilled servants were paid RM300-330 than Filipina servants, who earned RM500 Indonesian per month, per month. at least one-third less
delays demands that the state Foreign female domestic worker inmigration to establish childcare centers in the encourage public and private companies to a Malaysian state official, whose responsibilities workplace. According included overseeing women's status and legal rights, there were plans in 1994? The 95 to establish creches or childcare centers in low-income neighborhoods. is that middle-class assumption employers can and will reject childcare centers in favor of employing domestic servants who, in turn, care for children and perform housework. short-term contracts {i.e., & two-year contract with an State-designated extension of an additional and final year) deny foreign servants the right to change employers without prior state approval, keep wages low, and facilitate the repatriation of labor during economic downturns. To offset administrative costs involved in regulating the inmigration of low-wage foreign workers, the levies for all categories Department Immigration imposes annual immigration of migrant workers. In 1994, every foreign female domestic worker or her employer was required to pay a levy of RM360 per annum; in 1993, the collected RM276 million in levies from all catego? Department Immigration ries of migrant workers {New Straits Times, February 6, 1994). Even with various control mechanisms in place, the Malaysian state finds itself compelled to regulate Filipina and Indonesian servants' activities in never direcdy, explicidy or officially acknowledged, public space. Although state authorities' relation to foreign female domestic workers in particular and low-wage foreign migrant workers in general can be read as driven by the interest in ensuring "national security." In 1993, Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad admitted that Malaysia had become home to approximately 1 million illegal Indonesian migrants {TheSun, December 12, 1993). Intent on reducing the population of illegal female and male migrant workers, police and officials conduct raids on places known to harbor illegal migrants. immigration
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raids are considered of necessarily preventive measures in anticipation downturns. male and female migrants are sent to future economic Captured one of eight immigration or potential Malaysian depots to await deportation Business Times, April 28, 1993). employers (see The state, in effect, coopted the late 1970s/early 1980s argument of critics that foreign migrant workers constituted a threat to national security. Police that state authorities and immigration raids in the 1990s, then, demonstrate are diligendy monitoring the threat. Legal Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers, in particular, pose a different kind of threat to national security that, when left unchecked, has the perceived The potential to affect negatively the physical health of Malaysians and the make-up of the population. Legal foreign servants are required to undergo three medical examinations: once before arrival in the country, once during the first six months of employment, and once before the end of the two-year contract prior to the renewal of a third and final year of paid housework. The medical examinations are designed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as venereal disease, tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, and AIDS (New Straits Times, March a to the Immigration 28, 1994), and pregnancy. According Department, within 24 female domestic worker would be subject to deportation foreign hours of the disclosure of pregnancy because it is "not only morally unaccept? able but also against immigration laws" (The Star, April 16, 1994). Male migrants, especially construction workers who enjoy even greater than foreign female servants since they work in public space, and who mobility engage in sexual relations with Malaysian women and/or foreign servants are not subject to immediate if and when their female sex partners deportation become pregnant. Most assuredly, while purporting to protect Malaysians and migrant women against STDs, the state's health policy for foreign domestic workers in effect frees Malaysian and foreign migrant men from taking legal for their acts of consensual and moral responsibility sex with or their sexual offenses against Filipina and Indonesian servants. The actions of immigration and police officials, as well as consistendy negative news portrayals of foreign female domestic workers mutually reinforce one another. It is argued that illegal migrant workers are responsible for the by immigrants, majority of crimes committed e.g., murder, theft, and rape Both legal and illegal foreign servants, (New Straits Times, November 25,1993). with "house theft rings" and prostitution especially, are associated consistendy by the newsprint media (New Straits Times, October 25 and May 11, 1992, September 7, 1993; The Star, November 20,1992; Malay Mail, November 30, and police officials occasionally raid farmers' markets, 1993). Immigration discotheques, shopping malls, churches, and mosques in search of Filipina and Indonesian servants who fail to register with the Immigration Department and/or who moonlight as prostitutes and illegal operators of hawker stalls.
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Not so coincidendy, two of the mainstream political parties in Barison Nasional, the ruling coalition party, respectively have controlling stakes in the two major English language newspapers. The New Straits Times is controlled Baru) which, in turn, (UMNO by United Malays National Organization dominates Barisan Nasional and state bureaucracy. The Star is controlled by the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the largest mainstream Malaysian Chinese political party (Gomez, be? 1990, 1994). The implicit partnership tween the state and the newsprint media continues to have a devastating effect on foreign female domestic workers. The official policy of reducing the number of illegal and legal Filipina and Indonesian servants who engage in criminal activities, coupled with sensation? alized news articles linking servants to "sex for sale" acts, paradoxically and sexualize and dehumanize simultaneously migrant womens presence in Ma? discourse associating foreign servants with laysian society. Consistent public the lack of hygiene and morality constructs and represents Filipina and women as foreigners undeserving Indonesian of public sympathy and illegal domestic workers as "social pariahs" who ought to be and are captured and placed in depots segregated from public-social space and activities. The inmi? female domestic workers to Malaysia gration of Filipina and Indonesian continues primarily from the expanding Middle-Class because Malaysian of demands for household middle classes. labor that emanate
Employer
Perspective
Middle-class Malaysian Malay, Chinese and Indian demands for domestic servants occur within the larger context of a national development path in which and middle-class Malaysian women have greater opportunities to working-class in the formal economy (Jamilah, 1992; Issues in Gender and participate is that nearly 90 percent of the 68 1993). Of significance Development, employers interviewed perceived hiring foreign servants as similar to possessing or owning material items. According to the female and male employers, into the "imagined community" (to borrow Benedict Anderson's membership (1991) phrase) of middle-class Malaysians depended on three major factors: 1) a certain annual household income level (between RM24,000 and RM50,000); 2) white-collar occupation and/or university-level education; and 3) "lifestyle." "Lifestyle" was defined further in terms of having overseas travel experience or knowledge and appreciation of different cultures and peoples and ownership of a house/condominium, together with an imported car(s), the latest consumer items (especially electronic items such as computers and CD players), and a live-in domestic servant. fami? Foreign female domestic workers have come to symbolize employing lies' achievement of "middle-classhood." Private creches or childcare centers in
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Kuala Lumpur confirmed middle-class employer aversion to utilizing formal and informal childcare centers. According an employer of a foreign servant and the owner-manager of a travel agency: Creches bring up the connotation of lower class, like one step behind the middle class. \bu see, only secretaries and primary school teachers send their children to childcare centers. Why the hell would you want to send your child to someone elses house for a whole day? It's low status and demeaning. As foreign servants symbolize status for middle-class families, they also free middle-class female employers from having to perform the more laborious tasks. Husbands of female employers interviewed household did not perform domestic tasks such as bathing young children, meals, cleaning cooking or washing and ironing clothes. bathrooms, At an informal group discussion, three professional women (a Malay doctor, and a Chinese stock broker) laughed when I asked if a Chinese accountant, their husbands helped to care for young children, cleaned bathrooms, and so forth. One of them said, "you must know the Asian mentality: men just sit back and goyangkakt (a Malay phrase connoting laziness). It can be argued that marital or familial discord could surface easily as a result of a male's refusal to perform his share of housework while the female has to balance the demands of working beyond the home and taking care of the family The inmigration of foreign servants have lessened and employment female employers' household chores without any major changes in husbands' for well-kept home environments. expectations The absence of legislation clearly delineating the conditions in which foreign domestic workers perform housework in return for wages, and the unreason? able fear that all foreign servants are potential criminal-prostitutes, reinforce of migrant women as lazy untrustworthy employer perceptions foreigners. A of this is that employers act as if they can and do have (near consequence absolute) ownership of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers' bodies and labor. Below are a sample of statements made by middle-class employers that describe their relationships with foreign domestic workers: I pay her a salaryevery month. She lives in my house so if I tell her to do something,she should do it. So long as she sleeps in my house, and I pay the bills, I own her. She prays ten times a day, nothing else gets done. This is my hard-earned money, you know. I told her that unless she finishes her work, she cannot go to sleep. In order to recoup costs incurred in providing Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers with wages, and board and lodging, some employers even resort to conducting food inventory in the home. They then accordingly charge the servants for consuming household food.
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Middle-class employers' individual and collective fears over the perceived sexual and criminal tendencies of all foreign domestic workers have become a key rationale for severely curtailing Filipina and Indonesian servants' ability to interact with people beyond the workplace. In an interview at her home, one employer repeated the advice she gave to her friends who also employed foreign servants: "The way to keep her in line is not to let her out of the house, always keep her in sight. Don't let her use the phone. Really, never let her out unless you have to." Other employers believed similarly: "Don't let them [servants] be contaminated. Don't let them out to learn bad habits from outsiders"; "less getting together, less trouble"; "I don't want my girl getting bad ideas from other people"; and "I drive her to church and wait for her; I want to see that she doesn't mix with bad company." In the first few weeks of fieldwork, I quickly discovered that employers were not enthusiastic, to say the least, in allowing me to speak with their domestic workers. An irate employer who objected to an interview of her servant admon? ished me by saying: "What you need to know about my maid, I will tell you. I don't want her talking to other people. You read the papers ... so many stories about how they are prostitutes and criminals." The news media plays a major role in shaping negative public perceptions of articles on police arrests of Filipina foreign servants by printing sensationalized and Indonesian domestic workers and, in the process, identifying certain public places as sites of prostitution involving the women. Azizah Kassim (1987:271) writes, in the case of Indonesian migrant workers, "The local population has had limited or non-interactions with the Indonesians, and thus press coverage of the Indonesian immigrant issue was seminal in setting the tone of public opinion and shaping individual responses and reactions to the Indonesians." Employers' surveillance coverage of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers extends to monitoring phones and relying on their children and neighbors to assume the role of substitute spies. One employer taught her eleven year old son to report on the behavior of the servant in her absence, while another telephoned her house intermittendy during the work day to determine if the domestic worker was busy performing housework or merely chatting with another servant over the telephone. Still another employer depended on her close relationship with an elderly neighbor who would visit her house several times during the day just to ensure that the servant did not use the telephone or entertain guests. At a church in Kuala Lumpur, I was privy to a conversation between two servants that confirmed a neighbor's role in circumscribing the activi? Filipina ties of a foreign servant in the absence of her female employer: Patricia: Sometimes there is not enough food to eat [in the house]. Elba: If you are hungry, go outside and buy food. How can you work if you are hungry? Patricia: I am scared that the neighbors will see me and tell her that I went out of the house.
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The strategy of delegating neighbors as spies is functionally abusive since female domestic workers who, out of hunger, leave the workplace to foreign Nonetheless, buy food will risk punishment. employers' actions are rational? ized in terms of preventing the servants from participating in criminal activities outside the home. Of interest is that Chinese (Cantonese-speaking) employers had a tendency to refer to foreign servants as mui tsai (girl-slave); bun mui (Filipina girl), or girl). Late twentieth century use of the noun mui tsai yon lay mui (Indonesian is indicative of the resiliency of the traditional that girl-slave institution originated in China wherein poor families sold or pawned their girl children to wealthy families in order to settle debts (Lasker, 1972; Lim, 1958). The use of such nouns by middle-class Malaysian Chinese employers represents Filipina and Indonesian women as little more than girl-slaves. Increasingly, within the larger national context of creating open markets and avenues of free trade as the route to realizing a modern developed Malaysian and society, middle-class modern urban economy pursuit of a distinctive and lifestyle has come to involve the consumption of imported identity material goods and services (Kahn, 1996), including that of foreign female workers' labor. In this schemata, domestic middle-class of representations foreign female domestic workers as lazy untrustworthy foreigners/girl-slaves are justified by and justify their ownership and control of the women. At least 70 percent of 136 Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers interviewed in this study complained of long work hours, lack of adequate food and proper sleeping accommodations, and no rest days. DOM representatives would openly encourage such behavior on the part of employers. Private Domestic
Employment
Agency
Perspective
DOMs are indispensable actors in Filipina and Indonesian female domestic worker migration to and employment in Malaysia. In neoliberal terms, DOM are the free market institutions that, based on the free flow of information, meet employers' demands with the supply of foreign servants. accordingly in the labor-sending DOMs and receiving states can be extralegal or legal or prior to state regulation companies. From the late 1970s until the mid-1980s of DOMs, extralegal DOMs were travel agencies that doubled as employment agencies. Filipinas traveled to Malaysia on social visit passes and proceeded to work illegally. In rare cases, employers could and did petition the Immigration to change the foreign domestic workers' immigration status from Department that of visitor to worker. The illegal route was and, to a certain extent, continues to be a more life-threatening women who contract with way for Indonesian taikong or illegal labor brokers to bring them to Malaysia: taikongfees are less exorbitant than those of legal DOMs, and the illegal route bypasses all
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bureaucratic channels involved in the migration process (Spaan, 1994). The route or jalan bawah (underground road) entails long bus rides from the interior of Java island, for example, to the coastal areas where migrants, in the middle of the night, travel by boat across the ocean to the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The sojourners then are sold {juafy by taikongto employ? ers to repay their passage. According to NGOs and several Indonesian servants, women who arrive in Malaysia by way of the illegal route are not given any - however wages for many months long it takes for the women to repay the debts incurred in their passage to Malaysia. The Philippine Ministry of Labor, the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower, the Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources and Immigration Department labor migration and regulate DOMs as a way to curb illegal and indentured also to prevent the loss of revenues to the states and licensed DOMs. Licensed DOMs to employers and charge the market price for services provided domestic servants. Most Filipina and Indonesian women would borrow money or mortgage family farm land and houses to pay DOMs in the labor-sending countries for processing travel and work documents. Fees range from RM8001500 and RM1000-2000, respectively, for Filipina and Indonesian women. In this era of the transnationalization of capital, DOMs are the informal institutions that finance transnational labor migration. banking low-wage and Indonesian DOMs buy the womens debts and then sell the Philippine debts to Malaysian DOMs. The latter, in turn, deduct a certain amount from the womens salaries each month until the debts are cleared. Steep interest rates, between 3 to 10 percent per month, are added onto principal loan amounts. The majority of the 136 foreign female domestic workers interviewed {i.e., at least 80 percent) said that they had to or were expected to work for nearly six to eight months before receiving their entire monthly salaries. Even so, RM30 may be deducted per month to pay the immigration levy if the Malaysian employer refuses on pay on behalf of the domestic worker.) and Indonesian DOMs prepare biographical data packages for Philippine potential Malaysian employers to peruse. In one case, a DOM representative showed me a model contract that described the foreign servants expected tasks: "The Agency supplies the Maid only as a domestic maid to household duties such as washing, cooking, cleaning, carry out the normal housekeeping etc., and for no other purpose." babysitting, The "etc." is precisely that which many Filipina and Indonesian servants are to perform. Included in a biographical data package given to me compelled was a twenty-item questionnaire by a prepared by the DOM and completed servant. Among the questions were: "Are you willing to work if 50 percent of your salary is deducted to pay your debt?" and "Are you willing to wash cars?" Some of the questions, nature of then, not only anticipate the indentured transnational migrant female domestic labor, but also expand the tasks required
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to include physical work outside of the house, e.g., storm drains, and so forth. Whereas a wealthy house? washing cars, cleaning hold would have a division of labor among domestic servants, a servant in a middle-class household could and would have to assume most of the tasks. The legal process of hiring a foreign female domestic worker in Malaysia is as follows. A prospective employer approaches a DOM which, in turn, communi? cates with its overseas affiliate. The Philippine and/or Indonesian DOMs will forward a completed biographical data package on each servant (health examina? tion, application form, completed survey questionnaire, and photograph) to the Malaysian DOM. The prospective employer reviews all biographical data packages and then chooses a domestic worker, after which DOMs in the labor-sending and receiving states initiate the processes of obtaining exit and entry permits. Malaysian state regulations insist that air travel for Filipinas must be contracted with national air carriers, i.e., Malaysian Airlines System or Philippine Airlines. Women from the nearby archipelago of Indonesia are allowed to travel by ferry (privately owned companies) or air (Malaysian Airlines System or Garuda Indonesia). DOMs are responsible for ensuring that foreign female domestic workers fulfill the state's health requirement for work in Malaysian households. The following was stipulated in a contract that was given to me: "The medical examination will be held at approved clinics appointed by the Agency." Several Filipina and Indonesian servants admitted that they paid between RM50-RM80 for health certifications without having to undergo any medical checkup. Some medical establishments and/or personnel profit from the inmigration of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers without so much as having seen the women. DOMs between RM2000 and Malaysian charge potential employers for a Filipina servant and between RM2300 and RM3900 for an RM2500 Indonesian servant. In 1994, a Filipina servant's salary was fixed at RM500. POEA previously had set the salary at US$250 (or approximately RM725), but DOMs argued that employers vehemendy refused to pay the POEA-determined salary ? the "compromise" was RM500 (New Straits Times, August state had yet to propose a base salary for 1, 1992). Since the Indonesian Indonesian female domestic workers, DOMs insisted that Indonesian women's salary of RM300-RM330 per month was determined by "the market." The relatively higher agency fees incurred in hiring an Indonesian woman were explained by several DOM agents in the following manner: ". . . because the Indonesian salary is less" and "[w]e are buying them, to tell you frankly." The logic is reversed in these cases; since employers pay less per month for Indonesian domestic servants, then DOMs are compelled to charge higher fees as self-com? pensation for the difference between Filipina and Indonesian women's salaries. interactions are shaped by the use of specific language that DOM-employer makes the entire process of hiring a domestic worker similar to that of purchasing a product. I spoke with several DOM agents just before the Malay
of a domestic
worker
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in which there was a rise in demand for Indonesian New Year {HariRayaPuasd) servants. As one DOM representative told me, "I am out of stock this month, why don't you go for a Filipina?" A Filipina servant who operated a hawker's stall on her rest days (two Sundays a month) outside a church, said "It's common sense, don't you know? If you open a business, the first thing is to make money. Look at me, I'm doing it also. But I'm different because I'm selling this [she points to magazines, soap, make-up, food, etc.]. They [DOMs] are selling us." What happens when an employer does not like his/her "product"? No DOMs offer refunds. Rather, they have what amounts to an exchange policy. Most offer a three to four month "probationary period" in the event that an and a domestic worker are not compatible. employer Beyond that, some DOMs do not provide any alternatives, while others encourage employers to send the servants back to the DOM for counseling, or in one case, "reeduca? I was told by a client (employer of a foreign female tion." "Reeducation," domestic worker) of the particular agency, meant an overnight stay at an agency house wherein the domestic worker would be instructed to look down and her. (Regardless away from the employer if and when the latter reprimanded of the circumstances, the servant would always have to apologize to her employer.) The foreign servant would be "slapped" by her agent if sent back to the agency house for stealing her employer's possessions or having sex with members {see also New Straits Times, September 16, 1983). of the twenty DOMs occasionally called the domestic workers Only two out and/or employers to offer help in adjusting to new working relations and In light of immigration environment. and police raids coupled with negative news reports, at least half of the twenty DOMs interviewed told their clients to give foreign female domestic workers (with legal work permits) RM10RM30 in lieu of a rest day away from the workplace, so as to prevent the women from getting into legal trouble. Representatives from three DOMs, respectively, advised me (in the capacity as a prospective in the following manner: employer) to treat a foreign servant male household
Why let the girl out? Once a month is OK, but she doesn't really need a day offbecause she's staying in your house. If she gets sick, take her to the doctor. Don't let your girl use the phone, and don't let her out of your house. It'll be better for you. OK, I'll tell you the conditions. Keep her SVLV,don't let her go to pasar malam, and open a bank account for her and put her salary there, dont give it to her. Here, DOMs represent adult migrant women as girl-children incapable of making decisions and/or as untrustworthy foreigners. Similar to middle-class referred to for? Malaysian-Chinese employers, Chinese DOM representatives eign servants as mui tsai, bun mui, or yan lay mui.
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in DOM use of the Arguably, the presence of such nouns interspersed in reference to transnational dominant language of commerce migrant female domestic labor, at the very least, retains some notion of foreign domestic affirms Polanyi's (1957) workers as human beings. This human dimension that labor is a "commodity fiction" in the sense that labor has to be argument commodified (i.e., bought and sold like goods) to a certain extent in the organization of a market economy. Polanyi, however, insisted that the processes labor can never be complete or total since "[n]o society could of commodifying stand the effects of such a system of crude fiction even for the shortest stretch of time unless its human and natural substance as well as its business organi? zation was protected against the ravages of this satanic mill [free market economy]" (p. 73). in which society mobilizes to demand The Polanyian double movement has not emerged in the dominant protection against the market economy Malaysian responses to foreign female domestic workers' presence and working of foreign servants as criminal-prostitutes, conditions. Clearly, representations female pariahs and mui tsai retain the notion that Filipina and Indonesian these specific representations women, they also function to that protects foreign domestic workers. As goods or even as criminal-prostitutes, and pariahs/girl-slaves, Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers have few legal options. Seen in either way, foreign female domestic workers do not qualify for workers' rights and benefits. servants prevent CONCLUSION The and actions of key state and nonstate actors involved in perceptions the inmigration of foreign and employment regulating and/or encouraging female domestic workers help constitute and maintain the walls of silence as human beings, not goods. While of migrant the total commodification marginalize NGO demands for labor legislation
the absence of labor rights and benefits for migrant women. surrounding servants are represented as economic soldiers, crimi? Filipina and Indonesian The different repre? nal-prostitutes, pariahs, girl-slaves, and/or commodities. sentations arise and correspond to the different roles and interests that key actors hold toward the presence of foreign female domestic workers' in Malaysia. From the perspective of the Philippine and Indonesian labor-attaches, men could not qualify to migrate as servants because they did not possess women's perceived natural ability to wield brooms, mops, and dish sponges in the war for economic survival of their respective countries. To borrow a phrase from Ferdinand Marcos' 1983 speech on the Philippine state policy of promoting overseas employment, domestic workers from the Philippines and other coun-
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but of the tries are the "new heroes," not of the Republic of the Philippines, in part, by integrating new world order which is to be constituted, emerging national economies with that gendered, and to a degree, racialized-ethnicized of the regional and global economies. led both labor attaches to insist that even though Economic competition women per se were superior to men in domestic service, the quality of paid housework performed depended on the nationality of female domestic work? ers. This class-gendered-ethnonational of women's relation to perception housework is expressed similarly by a Malaysian state official in his explanation for the larger number of low-wage Indonesian female servants in the country. cultural proximity between Malays and Indonesians has not Nevertheless, state from perceiving and treating foreign prevented the Malay-dominated domestic workers as a threat to national security along the political, economic and social dimensions. Legal foreign servants are subjected to public surveil? and medical examinations lance as ways to curb the perceived criminal-sexual appetites of all foreign servants and to prevent the spread of STDs. The and police raids of public mutually reinforcing processes of the immigration places and the negative news articles of domestic workers have had the effect of representing and Filipinas as foreign criminal-prostitutes Indonesian and social pariahs. The threat of foreign female domestic workers to national security is recast in terms of commercial DOM ventures. who by DOMs representatives facilitated the inmigration of Filipina and Indonesian and employment ser? the women as commodities to be sold, bought, vants, mosdy considered owned, stocked, and replenished. Particularly for Malaysian Chinese DOM this business schemata was tempered by references to foreign representatives, servants as girl-slaves or mui tsai. Such references retain a human dimension in the "buying and selling" of commodified foreign female domestic workers. the fact that DOM existence and profit Paradoxically, they also highlight margins are premised on the trade in Filipina and Indonesian female domestic workers. Sustained to expand the rapid economic growth in Malaysia continues middle classes. The employment of foreign servants is an important aspect of middle-class pursuit of a modern urban identity and lifestyle. Foreign female domestic workers not only free female employers from housework and child? families. Employercare, but they also serve as status symbols for middle-class servant relations are affected by three intersecting factors: DOM-employer relations in which Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers are sold and bought like goods; negative public discourse associating foreign servants with theft and "sex-for-sale" acts; and the absence of labor legislation for domestic service. These three factors contribute to employers' control over foreign female domestic workers. sense of ownership and
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Walls of Silence and Late Twentieth Century Representations of the Foreign Female Domestic Worker: The Case of Filipina

Walls Century Female Filipina in

Silence Representations Domestic and

Twentieth the The Female Foreign Case of

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

was drawn economic

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

WORKERS servants Filipina at least Indone? little to

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

Filipina and Indonesian

Female Servants in Malaysia

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