To all who gave opinion earlier: My neighbours maid already ran away!
By mr_ular
@mr_ular (842)
Malaysia
February 18, 2007 10:43am CST
To those who had given their advice and opinion earlier, thank you. Just a short recap, my neighbour's maid came to see me and handed me a note and told me that she's being abused. She wanted me to call her agency and report the situation.
The actual story: Luckily I waited a few days before reporting to the authority and her agency. The number that the maid gave me was actually her friend's phone number. They have planned to escape together. My neighbour who found out earlier about this terminated her phone line. Therefore she couldn't contact her friend. Anyway, she still got to escape from the house and now has already been detained by the authority.
I felt guilty for suspecting my neighbour and not informing her about this. Should i apologize to her? Oh, i get to know about the above story from my another neighbour.
2 people like this
3 responses
@foxyfire33 (10005)
• United States
18 Feb 07
I would be wondering why they wanted to run away and what she is being detained for? There must be more to the story that you don't know yet. Obviously I don't know the situation or arrangement but what right did your neighbor have to terminate this woman's phone line? I assumed she was an adult. Your neighbor didn't own her. If you didn't inform your neighbor of your suspicions, there's no reason too apologize. Bringing it up could just cause hard feelings. That said, I still wouldn't be too quick to assume the maid was lying. There was a reason for her wanting to leave and if your neighbor could "punish" her by taking away her phone privileges, what else was your neighbor capable of?
2 people like this
@tammyr (5946)
• Etowah, Tennessee
1 Mar 07
I am glad you explained this. in our country things are different and I am sure that those of us that answered your original discussion did not realized what was going on and would have given different answers if we had known this. I am sure the police would have straightened it out but it would have caused trouble for the neighbor and animosity between the two of you.
1 person likes this
@mr_ular (842)
• Malaysia
27 Jun 07
Oh no, definitely no more slaves here. You see, in my country, since there's scarcity in the supply of maids/person who cleans houses, therefore many are being imported from our neighbourhood countries. And to be engaged to this service, all employers will have to put a downpayment which can sometimes reached USD$2000 (that's considered very expensive in my country).
For your information, these maids will get privileges just like normal working people e.g. off on weekends, medical, et cetera.
Anyway, the payment I have mentioned earlier is used to pay for all the expenses occured i.e. transportation (by flights usually cost them more), passport and visa, processing fee to agents, et cetera.
So, just imagine when you have to pay for all their expenses to come to this country and suddenly when they showed up, they took the opportunity to lie and make you look really bad. Worse, if it becomes a police case!
Just to clear the matter, they are not locked up in the house. But in my neighbour's case, maybe she hesitated to run away from the house because her employer's parents are always around. Well, some maids are luckier than one another. Example, my sister-in-law even bought things and bag (it's a Polo bag!) for her before she leaves for her hometown every year (she gets about 2 months leave every year, courtesy of brother and my sister-in-law! Imagine, more than my annual leave workng at the office).
So I don't think it's fair for people to judge it in such way that we do not treat them right here in my country.
