Debating Female Transnational Domestic Workers

Women who participate as transnational domestic workers (TDW) are often portrayed as heroines or as victims who bear the social cost of economic restructuring (The Economist 1988), this essay will discuss how they become stereotyped as heroines or as victims. They become heroines because they have chosen to work abroad in order to provide for their family; on the other hand they became victims through their journey due to some issues. There are many issues surrounding the TDW, but according to my research, the most common ones faced by TDW are exploitation (including abuse, restraints and long working hours) and stereotyping by their employer and the public. This essay will explore these issues in regards of TDW in Singapore and how they are able to exercise agency at their place of work. The general approach of the issues around TDW will be divided into three sections. First is identifying the issues, then we will look at how this issues affect them and lastly we will discuss how they are able to exercise agency.

In order to understand this issue further I will provide a definition of agency that will be used in this essay, "agency is a person's ability to make choices and act upon them within the structural confines that simultaneously limit one's choices" (Constable 2003). It is useful to define the word transnational in TDW to understand their position in their country of work (i.e. Singapore), transnational refers to "immigrants whose daily live depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationships to more than one nation-state" (Glick-Schiller et al. 1995: 48), meaning that TDW are not temporary settlers nor permanent settlers.

Women have made up the majority of documented migrants in Indonesia (Spaan 1999), and most frequent destinations are Singapore, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia (Silvey 2004). This simply means that there are more Indonesian women compared to men who are sent to work abroad. Why women? One of the answer is, developed countries such as Singapore have a high demand for domestic workers, which mostly done by women. This is caused by the increase of women's participation in the formal labour force in Singapore (Yeoh & Huang 2000), as these women join the labour force, they need help to manage the domestic sphere. The help that they need mostly is usually to take care of their children and household chores such as cleaning and cooking. In Singapore, one in eight household have domestic worker (Wong 1996), and most of the helper comes from developing countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia. The figure highlights the commonality of having a domestic worker in Singapore. Another factor that we need to consider is why these women are working abroad. Most literature stated that the main reason is, they are able to receive a higher wage compared to working in their home country (Yeoh & Huang 2000; Parreñas 2001: 19). As mentioned previously, they are seen as heroines because they are willing to work in order to provide for their family and to fulfil this, it is more beneficial for them work abroad as domestic workers. Some of the TDW are overqualified as domestic workers, some of them have a diploma or even a bachelor's degree (Hoang et al. 2011) but due to the economy in their home countries, it is hard for them to obtain a professional job, hence they prefer to work as TDW. It can be said that TDW are a walking contradiction, they are heroine for their family but at the same time they are victims of economic development.

Another reason why TDW are seen as victims is because they are facing a number of abuses at their work place (Pratt & Yeon 2003). Female TDW are particularly vulnerable towards abuse due to several things, but the most significant one is because they usually work individually in a private sphere (employer's home). Male TDW on the other hand are more commonly found working at public sphere such as construction work (Chammartin, 2002). The difference between public and private sphere have a lot of implications, and one of them is the lack of monitoring by society and/or government when an individual is working in a private sphere. When employer feels like others are monitoring them, they are more likely to treat the employee according to the society's moral standards, but behind closed doors employer might feel they have more authority towards the employee. Exploitation comes in many forms, in Singapore, the most common ones are verbal abuse, long working hours and restraints such as; monitoring and limiting the TDW's social life (Ueno 2009). For instance, in Ueno's research one maid was called "stupid" by the employer, while the other is being restricted of their food consumptions (Ueno 2009), another example of verbal abuse can be found in Yeoh and Huang's article, one TDW claimed that whenever she made a mistake her madam will call her a "bitch" or a "bastard" (Yeoh & Huang 1999).

As for long working hours, it has become a norm in Singapore. This is due to the lack of protection by the government; the Employment Act in Singapore previously stated that TDW are not covered by the Act. The Employment Act it self regulates salary, working hours, rest day, holidays, workers right etc (Ministry of Manpower 2012). This means that the employer is not bound to comply with the minimum wages and long working hours are permitted. But the Employment Act have recently been updated, on the Ministry of Manpower website it clearly states that 'ALL domestic workers' are a subject of the act (Ministry of Manpower 2012), hopefully in the future this particular issue of exploitation of TDW would reduce since now they are protected by the Employment Act.

These issues of exploitation mostly happened in the private sphere, and due to the previous Employment Act, neighbours who witness abuse would prefer a 'hands-off' attitude. For example, there was one female TDW in Singapore who was scolded and beaten everyday by her employer, she cried loudly everyday, and even though her cry can be heard three stories down, none of the neighbours took action (Yeoh & Huang 1999), this shows how separated the private and public sphere is in context of TDW in Singapore.

Another issue that is commonly faced by female TDW in Singapore is stereotyping. Migrant workers (i.e. TDW) are often portrayed negatively in newspapers (Ponnampalam 2000). One journalist wrote an article about how the Singaporean views TDW, and it is clear how they are perceived as aliens, because it seems like they are not welcome in Singapore; "the presence of foreign menial workers has bred violent crime and increased the incidence of burglaries; they bring disease; they are noisy and insanitary [sic.] in their personal habits;