Give Them A Break For Goodness Sake

Art by Lee Yew Kong

I may not have a domestic worker. I don't need them for now. I won't say I don't need them in the future. Surely there's a place for this kind of job. Many people won't be able to go about in their daily lives without the help of domestic workers. We need them as much as they need us. We need help in running our round the clock working life style. They need us to feed their poor families back home. This should be a good arrangement. We need each other. But the truth is not that simple. Human beings are evil. Our core is as rotten as a cess pool. Our outside may look prim and proper but given the opportunity that rotten innards will not resist to leak out. That's what I saw with the recent domestic workers day off issue. More than 70% of Malaysians that participated in the recent sms poll by The Star voted against giving domestic workers their well deserved rest day. This is nothing but pure shame to us all. And to top it all up, the Indonesian government is freezing all future domestic workers from coming in until we clear up this issue. One of the biggest complain is abuse. What's wrong with us Malaysians?! I thought things like this only happen in the past when slavery was commonplace. Looks like some habits die hard. May be it's in our genes. The domestic workers are humans too. If we think we deserve day off, why not them. Are we better than they? Let us start being human by showing respect and compassion to them. Don't let money corrupt us by thinking that just because we pay RMxxxx we own the domestic workers we hire. They are workers not slaves. So stop treating like they are our slaves. I know there are many things to consider and we need laws to protect the employers too. I'll leave that to other more qualified people to deal with. This blog post is to plead to the better side of our humanity. Please give them a break for goodness sake.