Vera Chung

Hi.
I uploaded the files to my own domain.
.m4v video file: click here (right click, save as)

Hi and welcome to my radio show. The topic today is on errant foreign domestic workers, or FDWs.

I’ll be talking about errant maids because this issue hits closer to home, because I’ve actually been a victim of a maid’s abuse myself.

When I was a baby, just a few months old, I fell ill. My mother applied ointment on my body and when she turned me around to apply the oil on my back, she saw red gashes and marks. Turns out, my maid had been caning me while my mother was away at work. My mother sent her back to the agency immediately. I never found out why the maid did what she did, but I don’t think that there’s a valid reason for hitting a harmless baby.

There have been other cases where maids have stolen from my family, and every time my mother found out, she sent them back home. I guess these maids have their reasons for stealing, maybe they desperately needed the money, but stealing is a crime and we cannot condone their actions. I felt that my mother was kind enough not to report the maids to the police and she didn’t even ask for the stolen items back.

Our family treated our maids well. I can’t think of a reason why they would risk their jobs to steal from us.

Although I think maids should be treated fairly, I feel that if we give them too much freedom, they will definitely stray and may take advantage of their situation. I know of cases where maids bring their boyfriends back home and even of cases where maids have affairs with their employers. Some of them are married and have kids of their own. I feel that it is completely unethical and selfish of them because they’re harming the people involved, their spouses and children back at home and their employer’s partner and children.

Following is an interview I had with a victim of maid abuse…
(interview here)

I had a friend who was affected by an affair between her maid and her father. She declined to do an interview, but allowed me to show an extract of her story.

During the past year, I found out that my parents’ marriage was actually very unstable. They stayed married because of my brother and me, but it was apparent that they were unhappy. Then, after 11 years of working with us, my maid got more and more complacent. My mother came home to find her lying on my bed, reading the newspaper, and she went out for long periods of time. My mother then found out that my maid was having an affair with a man. That man was my dad. My mother sent her back home, and trouble between my parents got worse. My dad would go out and come home drunk everyday. After a month, my mother found out that my maid was back in Singapore and that my dad was paying for her handphone bills. My dad had flown her back from the Philippines.

She is probably still in Singapore, my dad still goes out to drink every night and visits her about once a week. I cry about it sometimes, but there’s nothing I can do. My parents are not divorced. They just want to live as if nothing as happened. But I can’t do it. I hate that woman.

After the many bad experiences with maids, my family has stopped hiring them altogether.

Thank you for tuning in to my radio. This is Vera, signing out.