The Handmaids Tale In Singapore

Singapores earnest home minister, Wong Kan Seng, and band of diligent MPs are determined to make purses of the finest silk out of sows ears, no matter how coarse. Rightly holding that affluence has its responsibilities, no less onerous than poverty,and that the need to look after the needs of those who serve are among the first charges on rank and riches, they have prescribed caning, fining and jail for new-rich Singaporeans with a predilection for ill-treating servant girls.

Reading maid-abuse horror stories, I am reminded that the surest measure of a persons true worth is the opinion of underlings from whom there is nothing to gain. Which is why no man is a hero to his valet, Il ny a pas de heros pour son valet de chambre, as 17th century French writer, Anne Bigot de Cornuel, put it.

 

What kind of opinion, I wonder, can the 15-year-old Indonesian maid, Hartati Ali Sodikun, possibly have of the rich 37-year-old woman and her two sons, aged 13 and five (who cant be named for the law protects minors) for whom she worked in Singapore? Harati, who called the children Boss Besar and Boss Kecil, Big Boss and Small Boss in Malay, says she was scalded with boiling water, burned with a hot iron, and punched on the forehead. Her arm was fractured, her head banged against the wall, and she was beaten with broom and tennis racquet. The culminating horror was being twice made to eat dog faeces, and then being asked by the older boy, the alleged perpetrator of all these bestialities, Was it delicious?

Not all the charges stood up in court. Also, the familys ethnic Chinese driver, Goh Kah Hing, saved the girl by driving her to the Indonesian embassy. Educated opinion is outraged, shocked letters have poured into the newspapers, and the government has toughened penalties 19 months in jail, caning and fines of the equivalent of Rs. 37,500 for such offences as causing hurt, wrongful confinement, assault, use of criminal force, insult and outrage of modesty.

Official concern centres on two points, as Mr.Wong made clear. Maid abuse runs counter to Singapores aspiration to become a gracious, civil society, he told parliament. Abuse of foreign domestic maids can also damage our image and bilateral relations. The government is anxious that Singaporeans, who have become rich almost overnight, should not remain boors. It also wants to reassure indignant neighbouring countries, all poorer than Singapore.

Maids are a touchy subject in South-east Asia. Three years ago, the execution of a Filipino maid, Flor Contemplacion, for murder became a cause celebre in stormy relations with the Philippines. Last year, 28 Indonesian maids sought refuge in their embassy, some complaining of rape, others of unpaid wages. The Hartati case had prompted Jakarta to stop Indonesian girls seeking work in Singapore.

But a ban would have been unrealistic even before the regions finances collapsed. Now, Singapore, rated the ninth richest country in the world, has the worlds third highest per capita GNP of $31,900. The figures for the two main maid-supplying countries, the Philippines and Indonesia, are $1,203 and $998. Another supplier is Sri Lanka with a per capita GNP of $760.

Other figures are as poignant. Cowering under the gaunt shadow of millions of jobless and starving people, and flooding the region with a new wave of desperate boat people, Indonesia needs the $5.8 billion that it received in remittances in 1997. Philippines economy is in better shape, but it, too, needs the $5 billion that its four million mainly female workers abroad send back annually.

Hong Kong and West Asia are the only other employment centres. But while non-Muslim young men and women can fare far worse in the Gulf countries, Hong Kongs living conditions are extremely cramped, and its future uncertain, though wages might be higher. Malaysia also employs foreigners. But while a Filipino cleaner in Kuala Lumpur earns $143 a month, she could make $230, plus board and lodging, as a maid in Singapore, and be able (especially if her employer is American or European) to work on Sundays at $10 an hour.

All this gives Singapore the whip hand. Mr.Wong says there were only 80,000 maids in 1993, now there are more than 100,000. If the government did not impose a monthly levy of about $300, there would be many more. Two or three decades ago many of these employers, actual or potential, might themselves have been in service as amahs, the Chinese equivalent of our ayahs, or coolies.

Now, they can afford to employ Filipino and Indonesian girls to do all the housework, to fetch and carry and generate that delicious feeling of having arrived. Which may be one reason why the number of reported cases of maid abuse nearly doubled between 1994 and last year, from 105 to 192.

Even those who are not cruel can be mean and callous. I knew a billionaire old lady, with extensive properties in Singapore and Australia, who told her tenant that her Filipino maid could clean his rooms and wash his clothes every other day for $100 a month. He readily agreed but when he added the figure to the rent, the old lady was affronted. She had nothing to do with the money which should be given direct to the girl, she said. The tenant complied, only to discover that his landlady had docked the maids wages by $100.

Mr.Wong will have a hard time making a gracious or civil woman of the likes of that tough old Chinese battleaxe who, having known poverty, is determined to make the most of her present wealth.