Every morning before the crack of dawn and her employer’s kids were still asleep, Ida would have been starting her work as a domestic worker at a house in Malaysia. As a migrant domestic worker, her workload was immense. It was not on par with the pay she received. Ida took care of the master’s kids, did their laundry, and cooked their meals. She also answered to her master’s two younger brothers who also lived in the house. Her work only stopped close to midnight, when the three kids were fast asleep. Only then could she rest. 

The misery of her routine was not only a matter of exhaustion but also of crushing loneliness. She was prohibited from using a cellphone, so to get news from her family in Nganjuk, East Java, Ida had to borrow her employer’s cell phone. She was allowed to use the phone once a month for 10 minutes.

“Sometimes my employer would change their phone number, making it difficult for my family to reach me,” she says, grimly. 

Living in such an isolating living space, her longing became a heavy psychological burden. 

Since her first day of work, Ida had been subject to confinement. She was prohibited from talking to anyone except the other domestic worker who lived at another quarter of the house. If Ida violated the rules, her employer threatened to ask her police officer brotherto arrest her. The threat frightened Ida, so she did whatever her employer would ask of her—including tasks outside of her work scope.

Estranged from anyone to help her, Ida had no one to talk to about her miseries. She was often engulfed with stress, especially since she was not used to living far away from her family and children. The lack of sleep, nutrition, and rest weakened her body. But she knew she had to be resilient because her kids at home financially depended on her.

Ida’s story is not unique. Umi, another migrant domestic worker, also faced similar issues. When she first arrived at her employer’s door, Umi brought a bag of clothes and a heavy burden of anxiety. Her hands trembled every time she tried to do her tasks, fearing she would make mistakes and be reprimanded. Her agency had instilled in her head that she should never make the employers disappointed or angry.

“My first days of work were ridden by anxiety. If I keep making mistakes, will I be reprimanded? What kind of anger would they show? The thoughts kept burdening my mind,” she recalls.

Ironically, the fear only made her keep making mistakes. Broken cups and plates, discolored clothes after she botched a laundry job. Although she did not get hit or screamed at, she often had to face her employer’s anger.

Umi’s routine started at six in the morning. She took the master’s kids out of bed and prepared them for school. She prepared their breakfast, their lunch boxes, and made sure they were dressed before they go to school at 7 am. After the kids were on their way, Umi and another domestic worker started to do the household chores, starting from the rooms upstairs. She folded the blankets, made the beds, and cleaned the furniture. Everything should be cleaned before the lady of the house came back from taking the kids to school. The deadline for house cleaning was 10 a.m.

The everyday routine was not limited to those activities. When the employers were entertaining guests, Umi’s workload increased significantly. Umi had to do extra chores of preparing food for five to ten guests, washing dishes, and keeping the house clean amidst her chores. However, the payment was still the same.

“When they were entertaining, I almost could not rest. Many times I could not even find the time to shower. The chores might continue until 2 p.m.,” she says.

During busy days, Umi only had one or two hours to rest. At the time in 2015, cellphones were still considered a luxury. If she wanted to reach her family back home, Umi had to use her employer’s cellphone in a limited time. Umi was permitted to use the phone for a call, but only for a while. Although she was given access for that, Umi was always haunted by doubts and fear, as if there were limits she should not cross.

Umi’s simple story represented many other women who left their hometown to work far away from the comfort of their own homes. They had to follow unending routines, caring for families who needed their hands while ignoring their own needs. For Umi, every day is a struggle to survive. No sick days, no off days, only work and work—fueled by hope that she held on to so dearly. 

Besides Ida and Umi, Ratna also experienced a similar story. Her days as a domestic worker in Malaysia were hardships after hardships she had never imagined. Her task as a caretaker for an elderly man came with inhuman challenges.

“My employer was mentally challenged. He would become angry all of a sudden. Sometimes he hit me, sometimes he threw his feces at me. One day a doctor advised the family to put him in a nursing home because he was too violent. However, the family still wanted me to take care of him at home,” Ratna says.

Ratna’s tasks included giving him his daily medications, drawing his bath, taking him to bed, cooking his meals, as well as cleaning his feces—which every so often he would throw at her.

“One day during bath he hit and kicked me. I reported it to his wife, but she did not believe me.”

Ratna lived without privacy, not even a small bedroom. She slept on the floor, on a rug, under the dining table. She had to buy her own daily needs, such as soap and food, using her own money. However, many times her payment did not come to her on time. Her employer paid her salary to the agency, who sometimes would take a few working days to transfer the money to her account.

For a year, Ratna had to survive without having any money to her name—despite the fact that her working hours seemed to be limitless.

“I worked for 24 hours. Whenever he needed me, I had to be ready,” she says.

Rest was a luxury. There were no off days, not even during the holidays. When she was sick, Ratna would fight through her fever and exhaustion because her employers refused to take her to the doctor. Ratna could only ask for paracetamol, which should be ordered beforehand and could not be obtained quickly. She often had to push through the sickness alone.

The burden became heavier when she was denied the little escape of writing a diary. She found a way of expressing her emotions by writing, but when her employer found out about her diary, she was prohibited from doing so. Communications with her family also became a luxury. Her cellphone was confiscated by the agency and she could only reach her family only through her employer’s phone once every three weeks for 15 minutes.

Without legal documents and an official working permit, Ratna lived in the shadows of uncertainty. 

“Once I asked my employers about the working document, but they said they had let the agency take over the business. They said they had paid an expensive fee to the agency, so I had to comply with the agency’s rules,” she says. 

Ami, a migrant worker from the municipality of Cirebon in West Java, Indonesia, never imagined that she would spend her life as a domestic worker in a foreign country. When she was looking for a job, she eyed a local job as a worker in a factory in Bogor, another town in West Java. However, she was denied because she was deemed too short for the job. The words still sting, like a label she carried with her body.

With hope for a better life, Ami went to Malaysia. Her sponsor promised her a brilliant fate, saying she would work at a Malaysian factory. She thought she would have a better future. However, when she arrived in Malaysia, she was not brought to work at a factory, but as a domestic worker at a house. Her life changed drastically afterwards.

“I did not have any choice. I had to stay at work to send money home,” Ami says.

At the time of writing, over a decade later, she still works at the same house. What was once an emergency plan suddenly became a solid part of life, a life of ceaseless routine. 

These stories of Ami, Ratna, Ida, and Umi are echoed by other individuals with similar fates. This is a murky picture of the lives of domestic workers under a system that fails to protect them. 

According to a survey by Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers Association (Pertimig), 95% of domestic workers in Malaysia do not enjoy a weekly off day (https://idwfed.org). Most of them work more than 15 hours a day. The employers and the agency give them only limited access to communication to the world outside of the house they serve. Many of them do not understand the contracts written in English, making them easy prey for manipulation. Findings also indicate they experience forced labor, besides overcoming challenges of cohesion and social integration for migrant workers in Malaysia. The rest of this article wishes to explore change among the migrant workers in Malaysia when joining an organisation, besides overcoming the structural barriers from getting a legal acknowledgement and status for the profession.

Employers who do inhuman treatments to their domestic workers rarely face legal consequences. Low (2021) said the continuous incidents create unequal power relations between the migrant domestic workers and the masters. Meanwhile, according to Au (2023), most of the workers who were barred from communication and isolated inside the employers’ house would find difficulties obtaining their rights. 

Amidst her hardship, Ratna still holds on to her hope. She wants every migrant domestic worker to get proper treatment, with enough food, a bed in a bedroom, and an off day once a week—dignified treatment fit for a human being.

The Journey to Join Pertimig

Like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, a small WhatsApp chat group initiated by a collective of migrant workers in 2019 ignited hope. For Umi, this was a community space she had been looking for since long ago, when she first arrived in Malaysia.

This WhatsApp group was initiated by several domestic workers who, after years of a long grueling process of lobbying, finally succeeded in lobbying their employers to permit them to have a cellphone as communication media.

“Previously, the migrant workers never had a special space to gather and share their stories or listen to each other,” Umi says.

Thanks to her encounters with fellow migrant workers, Umi realised there were hopes to change the conditions of the people in her profession into a legally protected occupation. The gathering and sharing events are now held at least once a month.

The small group chat became the seed for an organisation embracing migrant domestic workers (Pertimig). Here, she found a community that not only provided space to gather but also created a movement for a cause. Pertimig focused on fighting for their rights as domestic workers. Umi felt she finally found something meaningful in her life.

For Binti, another domestic worker who is also a member of Pertimig, her path to join the organisation came unexpectedly. One day, her number was suddenly registered in a WhatsApp group with no explanation. She stayed in the group as a reader and followed the conversation, especially between Ilmiah and Kak Emma, two of the most active members. Eventually she was encouraged to start asking things she did not understand to the two women. She was finally convinced that the group was indeed made for domestic workers.

“I asked them about the mission of this group. How did we have anything to do with ILO? I remembered learning about ILO at school, which made me more curious about the activity in this group,” she says.

When Binti joined a case management workshop by Pertimig, she met other domestic workers with surprising stories. One woman worked in four houses at once, another woman said she did not receive her pay for four years. Their experiences made Binti decide to actively contribute to Pertimig’s activities.

For Binti, joining Pertimig is not only about finding a community, but also finding herself. She became more confident in life. She used to do anything her employer wanted her to do, but now she would say ‘no’ if the task is outside of her workload.

The shift in attitude did not come in an instant. Pertimig holds the space for migrant workers like Binti to understand their rights as domestic workers, something that once felt way beyond her reach.

“Previously, I did not know anything about Malaysia’s domestic workers condition. However, after I joined Pertimig, I started to understand that we all share similar stories: heavy workload, unfair wages, and many other similar problems. From there, I thought: why don’t we walk together to fight for our rights?” she says.

Binti did not only talk to her friends, but also to her employer. Today, Binti is able to ask her master to discuss this, and assert how domestic workers also need a standardized wage, have the right to learn and gather, and take time for themselves.

Umi tells us how Pertimig is more than a community. Pertimig creates programmes with a clear direction and measurable goals. There are also discussion forums about domestic workers rights that add to her knowledge.

As one of Pertimig’s activists, Umi enjoys the benefits of their activities: public speaking training, English language training, as well as practical skills such as sewing and computer skills.

“I used to be scared of talking in front of people. I would have cold sweat and my mind would be blank. But now, at least in front of the fellow members of the coalition, I can speak clearly,” she says.

Pertimig also opens the gates for its members to join international organisations such as International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). Through Pertimig, Umi and Binti realise their rights would not be given to them easily–they have to fight for it.

Besides learning to fight for their rights, Pertimig also becomes a space for solidarity. Pertimig, for them, is a place to recover their hidden strength. Despite the heavy workload and exhaustion, they find encouragement through togetherness, which fuels their survival. Behind every small voice, there is a belief their rights are worth fighting for.

Legal Protection for Migrant Domestic Workers in Malaysia to Organise Themselves

Indonesian Ambassador for Malaysia, Hermono, says during a special interview, that according to Law No. 18/2017 on Indonesian migrant workers protection, including that of domestic workers, migrants have the right to join or create their own organisations, complying with the local law. 

“Especially for domestic workers, this is very important because they work inside a private household, hampering the monitoring process by the public, government, and Indonesian Embassy,” he says.

Hermono added that when domestic workers or any other kind of profession exercise their rights to organise themselves, many people would reap the benefits including the Indonesian government, local government, and of course the domestic workers.

“Most of the cases that come to our desks are unpaid salary and exploitation. Violence happened due to the absence of public control and the lack of access for the workers to report what happened to them,” he says.

Challenges for Pertimig’s Struggle

Pertimig’s struggle to obtain the rights of the migrant workers in Malaysia is not easy. Malaysian law does not acknowledge domestic workers as formal workers. Without a formal status, they are not protected by labor laws in Malaysia that regulate their maximum working hours, minimum wages, or off days. 

Meanwhile, the strong patriarchal values and cultural differences in Malaysia means migrant domestic workers have to endure stereotypes and biases as unskilled workers (Sarker, 2016). Media outlets remain ambiguous in their coverage of domestic workers: despite showing sympathy for the exploited, they also antagonise them (Lay et.al., 2024). Therefore, they are often portrayed as “the handmaiden”,completely under the mercy of their masters, without protection from exploitation or harassment.

The absence of formal status also hampers domestic workers from reporting the violations of human rights they experience, because there is no guarantee that they would get legal protection. This negligence, according to Au (2023), is caused by the way human rights protection is enforced under institutional frameworks that only acknowledge formal entities.

Social stigma towards domestic workers lingers because of the absence of this acknowledgement, making them be seen as lower class who do not have any rights to voice their opinions and fight for better working conditions. This is why organisations like Pertimig face difficulties in getting legal acknowledgement in Malaysia. Without a change in policy, the fight to increase domestic worker’s welfare will keep facing a dead end.

Many times employers see the existence of these organisations as a threat. Ros tells us, when she tried to recruit a friend, her friend’s employers reported to Ros’.

“I was reprimanded and threatened with not getting any more days off,” she says. 

This stigma becomes one of the biggest challenges for Pertimig’s growth. Therefore, a collaboration with IDWF (International Domestic Workers Federation) becomes one the most important steps for Pertimig to organise domestic workers. The collaboration helps give the members insights on how important it is to organise and advocate for their rights by giving them a series of training and workshops.

Beyond the struggle, there is a light of hope that never ceases. The Pertimig members urge the Indonesian government to immediately pass the Domestic Worker Protection Bill and ratify the ILO 189 convention about domestic workers, as well as Malaysia to give better legal protection to migrant domestic workers. Pertimig affiliates with The Labour Law Reform Coalition (LLRC) and actively gives input to revisions of labor protection bills and lobby the government.

Pertimig also stages the campaign of “24 hours weekly day off for domestic workers”. In Malaysia, most migrant domestic workers are still not granted any weekly days off. This campaign promotes the rights to rest, increases welfare, reduces social isolation, and encourages positive side activities. 

The domestic workers under Pertimig also hope that there will be policies that allow them to organise legally without having to face threats from employers or agencies. Umi hopes that in the future more domestic workers will join organisations like Pertimig. With a larger number of domestic workers, coupled with increasing capacity regarding rights advocacy, domestic workers will be stronger in fighting for their collective rights and changing the structures that exploit them.

“Let’s organise, because only when we’re together can we be heard. We are not just domestic workers, we are human beings who deserve respect,” says Umi.

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Nasrikah

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