[Malaysia] Plea to free maids from law allowing ‘slave-like conditions’

Advocates for domestic workers have urged Malaysia’s government to remove provisions in the labour law that can lead to maids facing slave-like working conditions, FMT reports.

A spokesman for the Ke Arah 189 coalition said some sections of the Employment Act permit domestic helpers to be exempted from following stipulated hours of work and from entitlement to overtime compensation, weekly rest days and holidays and medical and maternity leave.

“As such, it allows for systemic abuse of these employees,” Irene Xavier from the coalition said. 

Ms Xavier warns that domestic workers could be pushed into serving under conditions of forced labour despite Malaysia having ratified an international convention against forced labour.

She urged human resources minister V Sivakumar to remove these conditions immediately. Failure to do so would signal a lack of political will by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, she said.

Bar Council president Karen Cheah reportedly asked the government to accede to various international conventions on migrant workers and their families, and on domestic workers.

Ms Cheah also called upon the government to grant undocumented migrant workers the right to file cases at the labour court.

The Malaysian government was also urged to make a report by an independent committee on foreign workers public and to implement its recommendations.

The report was reportedly prepared by a committee formed by the Pakatan Harapan government in 2019.

Source: FMT

(Quotes via original reporting)

Advocates for domestic workers have urged Malaysia’s government to remove provisions in the labour law that can lead to maids facing slave-like working conditions, FMT reports.

A spokesman for the Ke Arah 189 coalition said some sections of the Employment Act permit domestic helpers to be exempted from following stipulated hours of work and from entitlement to overtime compensation, weekly rest days and holidays and medical and maternity leave.

“As such, it allows for systemic abuse of these employees,” Irene Xavier from the coalition said. 

Ms Xavier warns that domestic workers could be pushed into serving under conditions of forced labour despite Malaysia having ratified an international convention against forced labour.

She urged human resources minister V Sivakumar to remove these conditions immediately. Failure to do so would signal a lack of political will by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, she said.

Bar Council president Karen Cheah reportedly asked the government to accede to various international conventions on migrant workers and their families, and on domestic workers.

Ms Cheah also called upon the government to grant undocumented migrant workers the right to file cases at the labour court.

The Malaysian government was also urged to make a report by an independent committee on foreign workers public and to implement its recommendations.

The report was reportedly prepared by a committee formed by the Pakatan Harapan government in 2019.

Source: FMT

(Quotes via original reporting)