Alternatively, the URL is http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/washington/18wolfowitz.html,
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The Wolfowitz Touch - or how to lose US credibility
ST, 18/05/07
Leon Hadar
Washington Correspondent
One of the maxims that you learn in Politics 101 is that exerting leadership doesn't require the use of coercion and force, and that in fact the most successful politicians and statesmen are those who can defend and advance their goals through guidance and persuasion. When heads of state resort to ordering the police to quell demonstrators opposed to their decisions or to dispatching the military to press another state that challenges their policies, they acknowledge that they have failed in utilising their power in the most cost-effective way.
Indeed, whether it's in the domestic arena or on the global stage, leader shave an interest in keeping their tools of coercion - ranging from threats and sanctions to the actual use of force - as instruments of last resort when all else, including negotiations and diplomacy, has failed. That when he talks - as opposed to when he bullies - they listen, is the true testimony to one's influence at home or abroad. Hence, being a global power doesn't mean that you have to bomb other governments into submission to get your point across; it suggests that being aware of your status and recognising your credibility, whenother governments make decisions, they have to take into consideration the way they affect your interests.
Paul Wolfowitz has a PhD in political science from a prestigious American academic institution and he fancies himself a great strategic thinker. But the former deputy to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and currently embattled head ofthe World Bank must have skipped the classes when these basic political principles were being taught. If anything, during his tenure at the Department of Defense, where he servedas a leading architect of the war in Iraq, and in the short period when he led one of the world's most important development agencies, Mr Wolfowitz demonstrated that from his perspective, guidance and persuasion should be the instruments of last resort when you try to advance your interests. First, use coercion and force as you attempt to bully your opponent into submission, and if it's a foreign government, bomb it into the Stone Age. And if that doesn't work, well, then you might want to talk and try to use the tools of negotiations and diplomacy to achieve your goals.
Compare this 'shoot first, talk later' modus operandi that Mr Wolfowitz and his neo-conservative colleagues used as they tried to promote their preemptive and unilateral strategy in the Middle East and elsewhere, with the policies that were embraced by Washington during the two terms of former President BillClinton.
The 1990s, as you recall, were the years when America, the world's only remaining superpower, reigned supreme, its international credibility at anall-time high, and its sources of soft and hard power, ranging from SiliconValley and Microsoft through Hollywood and Wall Street to the World Bank and the Pentagon, making it possible to project its influence here, there andeverywhere.
In a way, by applying US military power in a very selective way - through air power in the former Yugoslavia, for example - the Clintonites helped to maintain it as deterrence against potential threats.
But when President George W Bush, operating under the influence of Mr Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives aides, decided to use US military might to its utmost, the limits operating on that power were suddenly exposed, eroding US credibility and diminishing its ability to deter foes while encouraging them to go nuclear. At the end of the day, it proved to be a policy that wasted precious US power.
Mr Wolfowitz, who as a reward for his failure in the Pentagon, landed up in the prestigious job of the president of the World Bank, embraced the same kind of bullying strategy there. He had brought with him Republican operators with no experience in international development, extracted huge financial packages for them, for his mistress and for himself, while at the same time he tried to force on the bank his 'anti-corruption' policy with the same kind of elegance that he exhibited when he set out to impose 'democracy' on Iraq and the Broader Middle East.
The Wolfowitz Touch - reflecting unilateralism, arrogance and disdain forallies and rules of public conduct - in the World Bank has had the same disastrous impact on US global status that resulted from his policies in Iraq.
It helped highlight a reality that Washington has tried to hide under therug for years: Assigning the job of the president of the World Bank to an American is not an element in a pre-determined cosmic plan but part of a diplomatic deal with the Europeans. And by naming the incompetent Mr Wolfowitz to that position, the White House contributed not only to the growing perception that perhaps the Americans don't deserve to hold that job anymore, but also to the continuing erosion in US global credibility. It is one more example of how not to use your power, unless you want to lose it.
US rushes to safe Wolfowitz after panel's damning report
ST, 16/05/07
Derwin Pereira
The Bush administration was fighting to save World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz’s job before he met the bank’s board yesterday, following a damning internal report on his conduct.
Declaring that Mr Wolfowitz had caused a “crisis in leadership” at the bank, its 24-member executive board was mulling over a range of disciplinary options that included sacking him or asking him to resign.
A special bank panel had said his involvement in securing an improper pay and promotion deal for his Libyan-born girlfriend Shaha Riza, a fellow bankemployee, represented a conflict of interest. It broke bank rules and the ethical obligations in his contract.
It also noted that he had tried to hide the salary and promotion package offered to Ms Riza from top bank officials in the months after he became bank president in 2005.
“Mr Wolfowitz’s contract requiring that he adhere to the code of conduct for board officials and that he avoid any conflict of interest, real or apparent, was violated,” it said.
And in what the panel described as the “central theme” of the matter, it said Mr Wolfowitz “saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply”.
But the man at the centre of the storm appeared to be digging in a bitter fight to the end, accusing his adversaries of carrying out a “smear campaign”. In a response to the panel’s report, he said: “It is highly unfair and unwarranted to now find that I engaged in a conflict of interest because I relied on the advice of the ethics committee as best as I understood it.”
The affair has dragged on for more than a month and has divided the bank’s 185 member states, with the US standing by one of its key architects in the Iraq war, and European governments pushing for his early exit.
The White House yesterday acknowledged that Mr Wolfowitz had made mistakes in his handling of the affair, but insisted that it was no reason to fire him.
“We’ve made clear that we support Paul Wolfowitz,” spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. “He has said – and we agree – that certainly, a lot of mistakes were made in the personnel process. But it’s not a firing offence.”
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other senior officials continued to lobby key finance ministers to support Mr Wolfowitz, blaming the controversy on missteps “on all sides”.
A senior board official said yesterday that Mr Wolfowitz still had a chance of rescuing his job, depending on whether he could present a clear plan for rebuilding his credibility when he appears before the executive board later in the day.
It is unlikely to make a final decision before today as it weighs the panel’s findings.
But speculation as to who might succeed Mr Wolfowitz has already begun.
Media reports put former US trade representative and deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick at the top of the list.
Time for Wolfowitz to go
ST, 01/05/07
Derwin Pereira
As Paul Wolfowitz continues to resist the growing pressure on him to resign as World Bank president, it is becoming clear that the efforts by the ex-Bushadministration official to hold on to his position in this important development agency is eroding the bank's credibility - especially on the central policy issues of good governance and anti-corruption in the developing world.
The crisis over Mr Wolfowitz's future in the bank revolves around the accusations that he made arrangements for his romantic companion Shaha Ali Riza when she was detailed from the bank to the US State Department (where she now makes double the salary of her boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice).
This revelation came on top of his placement of political Republican functionaries with no background of international development in his office (where they were rewarded with huge salaries).
In addition, many of the bank's executive boardmembers and staff have accused Mr Wolfowitz of adopting an authoritarian management style, of dismissing advice and squashing dissent. Ironically, these charges of unethical professional conduct recall the same kind of allegations of favouritism and nepotism that Mr Wolfowitz has been levelling against leaders and officials in developing countries.
In fact, he has threatened to cut loans to them as part of the ambitious anti-corruption campaign that he adopted. American neo-conservatives allege that his critics are motivated by their disdain for US President George W Bush and his policies in Iraq.
It is certainly true that as one of the leading architects and cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, Mr Wolfowitz's decisions resulted in a disastrous war for America. But that is really irrelevant to his current difficulties. The issue now is his own inability to live up to the standards of public conduct he set for the others.
This affair provides an opportunity for the members of the bank to reconsider the long-held expectation that the job of heading this international development agency should go to an American, and to study the idea that theselection process should be open competition. After all, the president ofthe World Bank is recruited by a 24-member board that represents the 185 governments that control the bank. The US has the largest vote, reflecting its 'ownership' of 16 per cent of the bank's capital.
But the tradition of nominating an American for president is a result of a deal with the Europeans, under which their representative has been assigned the leadership position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But the emerging economies, especially in Asia, should challenge this division of spoils between the Americans and the Europeans, and demand consideration of a non-American for the presidency of thebank.
It may be doubtful that the Bush administration would welcome such a dramatic change in status of the US in the World Bank. But, at a minimum,Washington should accept the consensus that seems to be emerging in the other world capitals that Mr Wolfowitz's departure has become a precondition for any serious effort to restore the bank's credibility.
Wolfowitz a convenient distraction
ST, 21/04/07
The scandal which has engulfed Mr Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the WorldBank, is a classic example that even great people are capable of doing pretty silly things.
He must have known that his involvement in securing a huge salary hike for girlfriend Shaha Riza would sooner or later come into the open.
The man who only last autumn lectured everyone in Singapore about the vices of corruption is now exposed as someone who has allegedly used his position toadvance his own private interests.
Unsurprisingly, his tenure now hangs by a thread; the decision of one of his two senior deputies to call publicly for his resignation is probably more wounding than the “great concern” expressed by the bank’s oversight committee about his deeds.
But concentration on his predicament should not be carried too far. For there is a danger that far more serious political games will be played behind the scenes.
An indication that countries may already be using the scandal for otherpurposes came last week, during the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Those meetings were supposed to discuss global financial and trade imbalances. But, instead of dealing with such thorny issues as the exchange rate of China’s yuan or the huge US budget deficit, everyone preferred to talk about Mr Wolfowitz. It was the easy way out, but hardly a contribution to economic stability.
Mr Wolfowitz has been leading a drive to raise US$25 billion (S$38 billion) from rich donors to sustain development funding for the poorest countries. The Europeans have seized on his misfortune as an excuse for scuppering the entire idea.
The struggles against corruption and poverty remain important. It is just that Mr Wolfowitz is no longer the appropriate man to lead them.
World Bank chief responds to attacks on him: I'm not quitting
ST, 17/04/07
Derwin Pereira
A defiant World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz dug in his heels over a favouritism scam, declaring on Sunday that he would not resign despite a public dressing-down by European ministers and senior bank officials.
In a strongly worded communique, a high-level steering committee delivered an unprecedented attack that deepened uncertainty over Mr Wolfowitz’s future and threw into even greater doubt his ability to lead the institution.
“The current situation is of great concern to all of us,” the committee, which oversees both the bank and the International Monetary Fund, noted. “We have to ensure that the bank can effectively carry out its mandate and maintain its credibility and reputation as well as the motivation of its staff. We expect the bank to adhere to a high standard of internal governance.”
That statement was hardly the vote of confidence Mr Wolfowitz needed following last week’s revolt by World Bank staff, who demanded his resignation over allegations that he played a direct role in granting a hefty pay rise and promotion to his Libyan-born girlfriend, who worked in the bank.
The former US deputy secretary of defence continued to put up a front of bravado.He told a news conference after the release of the communique: “Look, I believe in the mission of this organisation, and I believe I can carry it out.”He said a decision on the controversy should be left to the bank’s board of member countries.
“We need to work our way through this,” he said. “The board is looking into thematter and we’ll let them complete their work.”
If the steering committee has delivered a stinging indictment of Mr Wolfowitz, the bank’s executive board is likely to further undercut his credibility to run the organisation when it delivers its recommendations.
Giving a glimpse of what to expect in its final report – which some speculate could be out in a week – the 24-member board released incriminating documents last Friday that gave him less room to manoeuvre.
The board acts as a kind of legislature setting policies as a counterweight to the president. In some ways, Mr Wolfowitz’s last two years in office have resembled a tug-of-war between two branches of government.
The board usually decides matters by consensus, but its power centres are the United States, Japan and Europe, the largest donors to its programmes. European members are likely to play a key role in determining whether Mr Wolfowitz keeps his job. They have long had doubts about his suitability to be bank president and have clashed with him over his emphasis on rooting out corruption in developing countries and holding up loans for countries with poor governance records.
Mr Wolfowitz’s defiance on Sunday might well further convince European donors like Britain, France and Germany that he needed to step aside for the good of the bank.
But voting power is based on shares in the bank.
The US, with 16 per cent, has the largest share, making it customary for the White House to nominate the bank president. It also means it is imperative that the major donor countries consult President George W. Bush if there is a decision to remove Mr Wolfowitz.
US support, however, is not assured. Despite its public backing for the beleaguered bank chief, Washington surprisingly went along with the communique criticising him.
The thinking among bank officials and analysts is that the board and the world’s finance ministers are unlikely to force him out in a putsch. What is likely to happen is that they would issue a strong reprimand over his involvement in the scam.
That would tear apart his credibility further and leave him no option but to quit.
posted by tomatopuree at
6:54 AM
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6:46 AM
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Other cases of maid abuse in Singapore:
Doting dad, filial son, Guilty of molesting maid
ST, 05/04/07
Crystal Chan
A filial son. A doting father. But Louis Ng Cheng Kiat, 39, has also been found guilty of molesting his maid. In court, the purchasing officer painted himself as a paragon of virtue whenpleading for leniency, saying he paid for his mum’s cancer treatments and thathe was close to his two sons. He even suggested that his Indonesian maid had made up the incident because shewas unhappy working for the family.
However, the court found Ng guilty of molest and sentenced him to seven months’ jail. He will also get three strokes of the cane.
The maid claimed that on 6 Jun 2005, she was sweeping the floor in Ng’s roomwhen he suddenly appeared behind her. Ng grabbed and pushed her onto the bed. Then he restrained her with his handsand legs when she struggled. He molested her while his two sons waited for their breakfast outside.
The maid managed to escape from Ng when she scratched his arm, causing him to release his grip. Later, Ng asked the maid for forgiveness. By then, she had locked herself inthe kitchen toilet for an hour.
When the maid was told to buy lunch for the family, she went out and called a fellow maid who, in turn, alerted the police. Ng was arrested that day.I t turned out that that was not the first time Ng had sexually abused the maid– she had been molested thrice between 16 and 23 Apr that year.
In his statement, Ng denied molesting the maid on 6 Jun and said she was trying to fix him.He claimed that he got into an argument with her when she flung his computer adaptor down in his room that day. And during the scuffle, he had to hold her waist to stop her from attacking him.
Ng also suggested that the maid may have been “taught by someone” to make false accusations. Ng claimed she was unhappy working for his family and did not get along with his mother-in-law. However, District Judge Jasvender Kaur found that while the maid was initially unhappy, it was only because she had too little work to do.
After the maid’s agent met Ng’s family on 11 Apr 2005, her workload was increased. They allowed her to run errands for Ng’s mother-in-law. The judge found that contrary to Ng’s claims, the maid became unhappy only after he molested her in April. The judge also rejected Ng’s statement that he accidentally touched the maid during the scuffle in his room. She noted that Ng did not tell his mother-in-law and his wife about the scuffle until the maid returned to the apartment with policemen.
She said: “One would expect a concerned father and husband to warn his familyabout the maid’s violent outburst, especially after his own ‘scary’experience.” In mitigation, Ng’s lawyer said he was a first offender and that the trial had caused his wife to have nightmares and insomnia.
Ng could have been jailed up to two years and caned. He is appealing against his sentence and conviction.
Woman charged with beating maid
ST, 18/04/07
A woman has been charged with four counts of slapping an Indonesian maid and whipping her with a belt in her flat last year.
Waheeda Akhtar Ali, 36, allegedly slapped Ms Dede Enis, 24, on her cheeks at her Flora Road, Upper Changi, home in June and July.
In one of the incidents, she is accused of causing the victim’s head to bump against a wardrobe. Another charge states that she used a belt to whip her maid twice on her backin June last year.
The case will be mentioned on May 15. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of 11/2 years in jail, a fine of $1,500 or both on each charge.
Waheeda’s lawyer, Mr Ong Peng Boon, said that he had just been briefed andwould be making representations.
Maid abuse
ST, 11/04/07
Elena Chong
Court Correspondent
A woman employer who abused her young Indonesian maid was sentenced to a total of 10 weeks’ jail yesterday. Housewife Jaya Gopal, 32, was convicted of slapping 19-year-old Kuseliningsih at her Whampoa Road home in September 2004.
She was also found guilty of hitting the maid on her face with a wooden ladle,hitting her on her back with a belt and on the head with a belt buckle between late October and early November that year. The second incident left her with a bleeding scalp.
Jaya, a former National Kidney Foundation employee, is out on $5,000 bail pending her appeal against conviction. Ten other charges have been stood down and a pre-trial conference will be held.
Ms Kuseliningsih, now 21, told District Judge Shobha G. Nair last month that her employer slapped her about a week into her job after she had alerted her about the children being naughty.
Then, before Deepavali, she was about to hang the laundry when Jaya saw dirt behind the washing machine and questioned her. Before she could respond, Jaya took a wooden ladle from the kitchen drawer and tried to hit her, but the maid held onto it in self-defence.
Jaya demanded that she release the wooden ladle and falsely assured her she would not be hit. When the maid let go, Jaya hit her on the face with it. She then told her son to get a belt which she used to hit the maid on her back and then used the belt buckle to hit her twice on her head.
The defence case was that the assaults did not take place and Ms Kuseliningsih made them up. Besides working for her employer, the maid also had to work at a foodstall run by Jaya’s brother and at the home of Jaya’s mother.It was not the victim who made a police report but Jaya’s relative by marriage, who did so on Nov 23 that year.
Woman accused of hurting maid with iron ST, 01/05/2007
A WOMAN said to have burned an Indonesian maid with an iron and punched her was yesterday charged with two counts of abuse.
Kiew Soek Inn, 59, is alleged to have used the iron on the back and right hand of Miss Sudaryanti, her daughter’s maid, at a flat in Balestier Road in early September 2005. Later that month, she is said to have punched the maid and pulled her hair.
If convicted of causing hurt with the iron, Kiew, who is represented by Ms Christine Sekhon, faces a jail term of up to five years and a fine. For the other charge of voluntarily causing hurt, the maximum penalty is a jail term of up to one year or a fine of up to $1,000 or both.
A pre-trial conference has been fixed for June 25. Kiew is out on $10,000 bail.
Big house, but...er, no cash to pay maid Cara Van Miriah
ST, date unknown
They live in a five-bedroom terrace house in Seletar Hills, drive an expensive car and appear to lead a comfortable lifestyle.
Yet, when they needed to cut down on household expenditure, they looked not to themselves, but to their domestic helper.
They told the maid that they would take away $50 from her monthly pay, which was originally $300. They even told her that the reason for the pay cut was because they did not have enough money to spend.
The 22-year-old Sri Lankan maid, who has a two-year-contract, said: “My pay was cut after eight months. My employer told me that they can’t afford to pay me. “She didn’t say if I will get the money back when my contract ends next June.”
The maid, who asked not to be named, said her employer has deducted $150 over the past three months. According to maid agencies and industry observers, there are quite a number of maids who, like her, are subjected to employers who are rich in cash and assets, but poor at heart.
Ms Bridget Lew, president of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics(Home), said that some of these employers are high-flying professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.
She told The New Paper on Sunday: “There is no guarantee that if an employer is rich, he will pay the salary on time, provide enough food or look after a maid’s welfare.“The truth is, they are just as capable of mistreating their domestic workers as those who are poorer. In any class of society, bad behaviour sometimes prevails.”
In her four years of running Home, a shelter for abused maids, Ms Lew has come across several such cases. She recalled that there was an Indonesian maid who was ill-treated by her employers, who were doctors. Although they lived in a nice house, they made the maid sleep in a poorly-ventilated storeroom that was cluttered with boxes.
“The maid was also verbally-abused. After a few months, she asked for a transfer,” Ms Lew said. Agencies observed that despite being well-off, some employers can be stingy and selfish.
Mr Angland Seah, who owns AJS Manpower Consultants, said: “They stint on food,even restricting the food portions for the maid. They’re reluctant to buy rice or meat for their maid.”
Filipino maid Fern Sumillo, 27, said that she knows of one maid who is left starving daily because her employer is stingy with food. Ms Sumillo gave the example of an employer who lives in a five-bedroom house along Yio Chu Kang Road.
She said: “Every day, the Indonesian maid would ask some of us for food because she can’t eat until her employer has eaten at night.”And one employer, a doctor, even gave strict instructions to the maid not to cook more than one cup of rice for each meal. The rice was to be shared by four adults, including the maid.
A spokesman for Success Manpower Employment Agency said other employers have withheld maids’ salaries – and feigned ignorance when asked. One of the agency’s Myanmar maids worked on a landed property for four months without pay. She kept mum because she didn’t know how to broach the topic. When approached by the agency, the employer gave a nonchalant reply, and said,“She (the maid) didn’t tell me, so we didn’t know”.
Some well-heeled employers are known to stretch every dollar. Mr Seah of AJS Manpower Consultants recalled: “I had one maid who would shuttle between two houses because the employer felt she had nothing to do in the afternoon.“They justified the pay by giving her extra work elsewhere. I told them it was illegal.”
And instead of hiring two maids, some rely on one to clean a big house, cook and do laundry for a family of five, on top of washing four to five cars – all without any incentive and sufficient rest, agencies groused.
A Filipino maid from JRS Business Express, who worked at a two-storey house in Geylang, was overloaded with work daily. After completing her chores at the house, the former nurse had to look after an elderly family member of the household at a hospital. She would return home from the hospital in the morning to catch a few hours of sleep and then buy lunch with her own money.
Two months later, she fainted at the hospital, her agent said. The rich also have peculiar habits, imposing unreasonable house rules.
One Filipino maid from JRS Business Express agency was expected to use five different coloured cloths to clean different pieces of furniture in the house. It proved to be a confusing task for the newly-hired helper. As a result, she incurred the wrath of her boss, a tai-tai in her 40s. The woman also wanted the maid to iron the bath towels after family members showered. The maid quit one month later.
Expatriates, who are the preferred choice of employers as they are known for their generosity, can be slave-drivers too, Ms Lew said.She was referring to one incident where a Filipino maid was asked to help out with a home-catering business, which means she had to work from early in the morning till 3am. After a year, she ran away and was later referred to Home by the Philippine Embassy.
Ms Lew noted that despite their wealth and education, these well-off employers exhibit “third world behaviour”. Although help is available for those who feel they are short-changed by their employers, not many would dare to confront or report them. (See report onright).
As the Sri Lankan maid put it: “If I say anything, my employer may get angry. Imay lose my job.“If I complain and continue working, she may make my life difficult.”When asked if she would contact her agent or the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) about the pay cut, she said with apprehension: “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. It’s either lose $50, or make my boss angry and lose the whole $250 and my job.”
posted by tomatopuree at
7:23 AM
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A WOMAN who kicked her maid in the face and repeatedly assaulted her in otherways was yesterday sentenced to three weeks in jail. Chan Chwee Fung pleaded guilty last month to three out of 13 counts of abusing Ms Nurwati in 2005 at her then residence in Dover Park condominium.
Chan, 34, had hired the 23-year-old Indonesian in September that year to help look after her twin children, who were born the following month.
The abuse began on Nov22 – Chan accused the maid of not mixing the twins’ milk powder well enough and hit her on the head with a cordless telephone. Six days later, she again blew her top at feeding time. After scolding Ms Nurwati for not holding a bottle properly while feeding one of the infants, she kicked her face once and slapped her twice. When Ms Nurwati held on to her employer’s arm to try and stop the abuse, Chan scratched her on the left forearm.
On Dec 1, Chan flew off the handle again when she saw a milk bottle in the baby cot. When the maid said she had stopped feeding one of the babies as the other had started to cry, Chan threw the bottle at her. It hit her on the left eye, causing it to swell.
In pain, Ms Nurwati cried out to her employer’s husband for help. When Mr Lim Ten Jek, 33, came out of his room, she asked for an immediate transfer but was told to work for another two days.
But she had had enough and called the police later that morning.
In court, defence counsel Kertar Singh said the stress of looking after the babies and coping with an inexperienced maid had stressed out his client. He submitted reports from a consultant psychiatrist who said Chan – a secretary by profession – was suffering from post-partum depression and a jail term would “seriously impair her recovery and worsen her fragile emotional state”.
But Community Court Judge Bala Reddy, pointing out that Chan could get psychiatric treatment in jail, said he would forward her medical reports to the prison medical officer.
Chan will begin serving her sentence next Monday.
Summary
This article basically relates the details of a maid being abused by a housewife she was working for. Between 2005 and 2006, Ms Nurwati was abused by Chan Chwee Fung, a secretary, thrice. Chan's misdeeds included hitting Ms Nurwati on the head with a cordless telephone, kicking, slapping her face and also hurling a milk bottle at her eye, causing it to swell. All this was carried out on grounds that the maid was not able to prepare or feed milk to the babies correctly. Chan's lawyer, Mr Ketar Singh explained that his client was suffering from depression and that she needed to be treated, but Judge Bala Reddy overruled his defense by stating that Chan would be given psychiatric treatment in jail.
Comments
Before dismissing this article casually, deeming it obsolete because of its typical maid-employer conflict, instead come to realize that it signifies a disturbing social trend, that is, the incidence of maid abuse is on the rise.
Be it accidental deaths by cleaning windows (February), employers raping (March) or physically abusing maids (April), long gone are the days where maids were merely responsible for doing household chores; instead, they now also serve as receiving ends of misplaced anger.
To me, maid-employer conflicts mainly stem from a huge lack of empathy on the part of Singaporeans. After recruiting a maid, the typical Singaporean outlook would be that the maid can be lorded over, simply because she (or he) is here to serve as a slave - and this is a highly fallacious mindset.
What Singaporeans often forget is that a maid, just like everyone of us, is a human being deserving of basic human rights. She possesses five faculties, possesses the capacity to think and interact with us, but most importantly, also possesses the capacity to feel a spectrum of humanly emotions - ranging from pain to pleasure.
Having forgotten the above, Singaporeans then proceed to treat the maid with contempt and disrespect. All this is exacerbated by the fact that the maid does not dare to voice her feelings out loud, in the form of a retort, for she is afraid that any action on her part which displeases her employer may earn her a deportation back to her native country - effectively rendering her effort to come to Singapore for work originally, useless.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is aware of, and has come up with initiatives to help combat maid abuse. They include the Employment of Foreign Workers Act, in conjunction with a toll-free hotline manned by the Foreign Manpower Management Division, to help protect foreign workers.
To alleviate the number of employer-maid conflicts, I propose that we encourage more communication between employers and their maids. It is undoubtedly true that language will serve as a barrier to effective communication in this case, but I believe that it is only through communication can stronger bonds be forged between employer and maid. The employer can learn about some of the maid's problems and try and help her out with them, whereas the maid can on the other hand get a better idea of the employer's expectations.
I acknowledge that I may have been biased in my above perspective. This is so because my parents have never employed a maid before. Therefore, I would not be able to know about any possible maid-employer disagreements, and consequently, not understand how employers may get frustrated with their maids, and in the heat of the moment, physically abuse them, as wrong as the act can be. Moreover, seeing how the recent spate of reported maid abuse cases has been played up in the media, my thoughts towards this issue may have been swayed.
To end off, I would like to quote Thomas Jefferson on his take on human rights:
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
Word count: 500 words (not inclusive of quote)
posted by tomatopuree at
6:52 AM
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