SINGAPORE: A foreign domestic helper who ran away with her boyfriend after working for only three months left her employers to pay the remainder of her loan to the agency.
In an anonymous post to a Facebook group about the working conditions of domestic helpers, the maid’s employer asked others for help and advice. The employer wrote that the maid had worked with them for three months and added that her main task on weekdays was to look after their 9-month-old child. She added that she had two other children in the upper primary but were sent to childcare after school.
The woman added that her mother or mother-in-law would stay over sometimes, especially if her children were unwell, to be of added assistance to her helper. She explained that her helper would only clean the house on weekends when she was home so that she would take over the duty of looking after her children. When it came to working conditions, the woman said that she allowed her maid to use her phone at night but had to return it to her the next morning. Her maid would often nap when the woman’s baby sleeps in the afternoon, but she does not scold her for doing so, the woman added.
The woman then wrote that despite all of this, her maid had run away. She explained that a week prior, she found out that her maid’s friend had also run away back to her home country despite having a loan to pay her agent. After her maid ran away with her boyfriend, the agency informed her that she would have to pay the balance of her maid’s loan, she added.
“I informed the agency that she left and now I have to pay her balance installment that she owns the agency if not I can’t get a replacement.. Me n my husband are super mad that we have to pay even if she runs away and leaves the country”, the woman wrote.
Here’s what other netizens in the group said:
