SINGAPORE - When Indonesian national Suyati, 42, moved to Singapore as an 18-year-old to be a maid, she did not anticipate the amount of work involved.

Her employer’s family lived in a landed property, which made housework challenging, and Ms Suyati, who goes by one name, also had to be a caregiver for her employer’s five-year-old child with special needs.

“At the start, I struggled with language and was shocked that my employer was very strict. I couldn’t do things the way they wanted.

“I wanted to go home,” said Ms Suyati. She added that she went to bed only at 2am every day, but was expected to be up at 5am.

She was so stressed, she cried frequently and went from 48kg to 39kg in two months.

Ms Suyati, who became a migrant domestic worker before the minimum age was raised from 18 to 23 in 2004, secured a transfer to a different family five months after she started working here.

She is now with her sixth family.

A 33-year-old Filipino domestic helper, who only wished to be known as Ms Cherry, takes care of a six-year-old boy with autism.

On top of caring for a special needs child, she is also tasked with the housework at her employer’s landed property.

“It’s really stressful with the kid. Sometimes, he would bite my arms and scratch me.”

“In the past, he told me to shut up, or he would punch my face. I felt upset and blood rushed to my head, but I couldn’t do anything,” she said.

Ms Joanne Lee, director of maid agency JL Employment Services, said employers need to weigh domestic workers’ job scope carefully.

“If they have to take care of elderly or special needs children, employers can allow them to do less housework,” she said, adding that some employers also prefer younger maids whom they think have more energy.

“Young helpers could be more immature, and sometimes lack self-confidence to handle stress, especially if they aren’t prepared for it,” she said.

Observers say maids may face significant stressors from the duties they have been assigned, mismatched expectations, as well as caregiving responsibilities that they may not be equipped to handle.

Many are also supporting their families back in their home countries, who depend on the money they send.

Zin Mar Nwe, a Myanmar national, was 17 when she arrived here on Jan 5, 2018 with a passport that claimed she was 23 years old.

Although she got along with the family she worked for, she struggled with her employer’s mother-in-law, who had travelled from India to be with the family.

The 70-year-old woman would reprimand and hit the maid when she was unhappy. When the elderly woman said she was planning to send Zin Mar Nwe back to her agent, the maid grabbed a knife and stabbed her to death.

The maid, who was paying part of her $450 monthly salary to the maid agency for the loan which allowed her to work in Singapore, was on to her third employer. Going back to the agent meant she would be sent home with an unpaid debt. 

Zin Mar Nwe was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 4 for murder.

Her court-appointed defence counsel Christopher Bridges said it is disorienting for migrant domestic workers who have to move from their villages to an urban jungle for work.

“They have a new language to learn, electrical appliances they’ve never seen before, and they’re here alone. They also fear whether their employers are going to abuse them,” said Mr Bridges, who has 33 years of legal experience under his belt.

He said Zin Mar Nwe struggled to cope because of her age and lack of emotional maturity.

“She had a lack of family support too, as she was allowed a phone call only once a month to contact her family,” he added.

According to Ministry of Manpower (MOM) figures as at December 2022, there were 268,500 migrant domestic workers in Singapore.

Since 2012, there have been 11 reported cases of domestic workers who were convicted of killing someone in the household they were working for. Seven involved maids under the age of 25, and four were 18 or younger.

In seven of the cases, the victims were 65 years old or older.

In 2015, Indonesian national Yati was jailed 10 years for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. She was just 24.

She had smothered her employer’s mother-in-law Aandi Abdul Rahman Rasheeda Begam, 76, with a pillow while she was sleeping.

Yati had initially told a psychiatrist that she heard voices telling her to kill Madam Aandi, but in a second session, she said she killed the elderly woman so that her employer, who treated her badly, would treat her better.

A spokesman for Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), said in many of the cases of violence against employers, it saw that the domestic workers themselves faced severe verbal, or sometimes physical abuse.

“This affects their mental health, particularly as they may be adjusting to a new house and country and dealing with isolation,” the spokesman said.

The NGO added that young, first-time domestic workers may also not have formed community bonds and, as a result, lack avenues to share their stress with their friends.

Caregiving duties

Ms Lee said most helpers who need to perform caregiving duties are not equipped with sufficient skills.

Her agency has seen some employers sending their helpers to attend training, such as the basic eldercare course, at the Agency for Integrated Care, to learn skills like fall prevention and bathing the elderly.

Employers can also hire a trained domestic worker who has undergone comprehensive training in eldercare from a list of approved maid agencies.

The spokesman for Home said: “Caregiving work for the elderly requires much mental and physical stamina, and some may need almost round-the-clock care.”

This can take a toll on the maids.

Indonesian Siti Farihah, 41, was sentenced to four weeks’ jail in July 2022 for voluntarily causing hurt to a vulnerable victim. She admitted to hitting a bedridden woman with dementia in the face, after using tissue paper to wipe her in a rough manner.

During investigations, she told the police that her actions against the victim were borne out of frustration and fatigue from having to take care of the victim.

Financial pressures

A helper from Myanmar, who wanted to be known only as Zin, said she took out a $3,000 loan in 2017 to work in Singapore. This was equivalent to six months of her salary then.

The 33-year-old said in Mandarin: “My first employer threatened to send me home, saying my work didn’t meet her standards.”

She added: “I felt scared then, but I had no choice but to continue working. If not, I would have been sent back to my agency and possibly sent home.

“How would I have been able to pay up?”

Ms Stephanie Chok, an executive committee member for non-profit organisation Transient Workers Count 2 (TWC2), said: “For domestic workers in Singapore for the first time, and especially those from Myanmar and Indonesia, they may be paying off agency fees for six to eight months.”

She added that those who are sent back without repaying their debt may find themselves and their families being harassed by agents.

“If they put up assets for collateral, such as land, then they are under enormous pressure to pay up,” she said.

Mr Bridges said Zin Mar Nwe wrote a diary entry about how she wanted to work hard in Singapore and earn an income to buy her parents a house and some gifts.

“Being sent back to Myanmar meant she would be returning in shame, leaving her family in greater debt than before she left.

“That was what broke the camel’s back,” he added.

Mr Bridges called on employers to be more accommodating, and interact well with their young helpers. “It can give helpers a sense of security, like going back to a family environment,” he said.

A number of measures are available to help domestic workers.

The Migrant Workers’ Centre, an initiative of the National Trades Union Congress and the Singapore National Employers Federation, provides migrant workers with assistance, shelter and food.

The Centre for Domestic Employees, an NGO that advocates for domestic workers’ welfare and fair treatment, has a network of over 1,000 volunteers and ambassadors who pick up issues brewing among domestic workers on the ground.

Home offers a shelter which can house about 50 domestic workers while they resolve legal disputes with their employers, while TWC2’s social workers are equipped to help with salary disputes, and offer consultations to assist domestic helpers with their immediate concerns.

From Jan 1, 2023, MOM required that domestic workers be given at least one rest day each month. If she agrees to work on the remaining rest days in the month, she must be compensated.

The spokesman for Home said that like all individuals, migrant domestic workers have limits on how much stress they can cope with.

As they may also fear losing their jobs, they may not voice out their concerns, which may lead to a breaking point. 

He added: “Domestic helpers need sufficient rest, communication with their families and friends, rest days where they can take a mental and physical break from their work, and to forge community bonds with others.”

TWC2’s Ms Chok called for working conditions for domestic workers to improve.

“These tragedies are a wake-up call for us to reflect on our dependence on migrant domestic workers and consider how we can provide decent working conditions for a population so vital to this country,” she said.