I am unable to describe with words how disappointed I feel at this moment. Disappointed at the very government I have voted for, because I believed that they would protect me and do what is right.
Instead of punishing a criminal (human trafficker) who allowed a stranger into my home without my consent, a criminal who circulated naked photos of my 19 month old baby boy to strangers I don’t know and a criminal who violated the PDPA act by taking photos of my personal documents and sending it to her loser Singaporean lover, MOM (Ministry Of Manpower) have decided to give my ex-maid freedom to roam and live in Singapore + an option to work for other employers while they “investigate” her.
How many employers have to suffer because MOM chooses to protect these errant maids, simply because they assume that these maids are weaker. We pay hefty fees ranging from $1500 – $5000 SGD each time we apply for a maid and whenever these maids decide that they want to choose an expat employer or change to a different family, we just have to forgo our money and pay another fee to apply for another maid.
If we are lucky, maybe we would have found a suitable helper after 2 or 3 rounds of changing and forking out about 10k – 15k in fees and loans. If unlucky, we may end up paying those fees and still having a terrible maid who either threatens us (employers) or is lazy and just because we are tired of searching/paying, we bite the bullet and just hang on to the lousy helper with the bad attitude.
Sure, there are terrible employers. But you best believe that there are equally horrible maids. Maids who have sex with our display items, maids who steal, maids who traffick humans and maids who abuse our babies.
Shouldn’t MOM be fair and protect both parties? Instead of just giving these errant maids the power to bully us, the employers who are actually nice! We treat them well because we assume that they would appreciate and reciprocate with the same treatment. However, there are a million examples where we, the nice employers get the worst of these maids and we suffer at the hands of these errant maids because they are fearless with the protection of MOM.
I am speechless. I am speechless that my government is allowing my ex-maid, the human trafficker to live and work freely in Singapore. I am sure her, along with many many many other errant maids are well aware that we, employers are helpless against them because MOM is on their side.
I now understand why my ex-maid said what she said after I called the police on her.
“MOM will protect me, I am not afraid. The police can’t do anything to me.”
So my fellow employers in singapore, be very afraid when hiring maids (especially Filipinos), be weary, be cautious, be alert. Watch out for yourself because you better know that MOM will not have your back.
It is sad that we, Singaporean working citizens are at the mercy of these errant maids and even our government is unable to help us. We just have to keep paying hefty fees to change maids or bite the bullet and accept one that will give us grief.