THEY ride their beat-up motorbikes on dirt roads that cut through green fields in dozens of Indonesian kampungs. Their mission: searching for women willing to work in Singapore as maids.
When some of the women demur, saying they would prefer working in Hong Kong or Taiwan where the pay is higher, they offer cash. Call it an ang pow, or a bribe if you will. An inducement to work in Singapore.
Known as “sponsors” these men form a key link in the domestic labour supply chain, bridging the geographic divide between Indonesian recruitment agencies, which are located largely in cities and towns and the women, who mostly come from far-flung impoverished hamlets.
Many of these men are the husbands, fathers or trusted neighbours of the women who want to work overseas. Some are respected village elders.
Indonesian agents say that it’s next to impossible to access the women without paying the men handsomely for their “recruitment” services.
The men keep the bulk of the money, but claim they use a part of it to lure the women to work in Singapore. In the absence of receipts, such claims, of course, are hard to verify.
The money forms a part of the recruitment costs that are paid upfront by Singapore employers - which they then recover from their maids through monthly salary deductions.
For Indonesians, these costs - and the consequent loan - has risen threefold in 10 years, from three months at the turn of the century to between nine and 11 months now. A rise in sponsor fees, say agents, is the main thing driving costs up.
The sponsor fees for Singapore-bound maids at some agencies is as high as eight million rupiah or $1,160. Sponsors claim they pay nearly half of it to the women or their families, as an inducement for them to come.
Women going to Hong Kong and Taiwan may also be given inducements, but these are much less in value, since salaries are higher there.
The majority of new Indonesian maids who arrive in Singapore get paid below $380. If they manage to go to Hong Kong, instead, they would be paid at least $580; in Taiwan $680.
During a trip to Jakarta and West Java this month to research a Saturday Special Report I realised that the sponsor's fees could be responsible for three negative but interlinked trends we are seeing with domestic workers here in Singapore. First, they push up the loans the workers must pay off.
Currently, as the maids work to pay off these loans to their employers, they get paid only between $10 and $20 a month. Many cannot bear the burden of working on such low pay for up to 11 months - so they run away.
If this happens during the loan repayment period, employers must haggle with agencies for a refund of the placement fees which they have paid on behalf of the maid. They’re lucky if they get even half the fees back.
In some cases, the maids run away within days. Agents acknowledge that some of them may not have even intended to work here long term. They simply took the ang pow, came to Singapore to see a foreign country and then ran away, only to be repatriated back home.
This way, they don’t lose money. It’s the agents and employers who must write off the unpaid load. So how can the situation be improved?
First, agencies in Singapore need to spell out clearly refund mechanisms should a worker run away before paying off her dues. Our standard contracts are silent on this so far.
The Indonesian Government could also enforce a ban on sponsor fees or work to minimise them. But this could be hard to implement. Agents tell me that the Government there has in the past tried to eliminate middlemen by asking women interested in becoming maids to apply for jobs directly to the agencies through the Internet. But many are not computer savvy.
Besides, they don’t want to apply on their own as they feel this would deprive the sponsors - many of whom are relatives - of their livelihood. What they don’t realise is that the “ang pow” they receive from the sponsors will be recovered from them as part of the loan they must pay back once they reach Singapore. And sadly, in a cruel twist of irony, many are promised ang pows, but don’t ever get them. The sponsors just keep the money.
Employers, meanwhile, can also do more - they need to gauge whether they would want to fork out higher sums as wages - directly to the women who work for them - to lower other costs like sponsor fees, which only serve to grease middlemen's pockets.
Higher wages could also entice banks to offer them the loans - like they do in the case of women going to Hong Kong and Taiwan. The banks I am told are reluctant to fund maids coming here as their salaries are too low.
After all, women going to Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t need hefty ang pows or sponsors. And neither are their employers saddled with their unpaid loans if they run away.
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