JakartaPost-Sept 8, 2022
Indonesian domestic workers join forces to survive in foreign countries and to empower each other by enhancing new skills. “I struggled to understand my employer when I first came to Singapore in 2001. There were a lot of miscommunications, and I don’t want my fellow migrant workers to experience something similar,” Nur Aini, who has lived in Singapore for over 21 years, said, recalling her early days as a domestic worker there. “I remembered my employer said ‘wire’, but I misheard it as ‘fire’, and you don’t want that to happen again,” she said, underlining just how tough it can be for Indonesian domestic workers to work in Singapore and other foreign countries. Nur is just one of the many domestic workers who has had many bitter, even inhumane, experiences. “For four years, I didn’t have any day off and wasn’t allowed to leave the house,” she shared. She was only allowed to contact her family once a month, which caused a problem in her marriage. She began to realize that communication was one of the main hurdles for Indonesian migrant workers in Singapore. Nur decided to help fellow migrant workers find a well-balanced support group by creating an online Facebook community called Friendship Club Indonesia. She offers free English, computer, swimming and photography lessons to provide Indonesian workers with skills to navigate and enjoy life in a foreign country. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when everybody had to stay home, Nur encouraged fellow workers to learn something new. “While staying at home, there were other domestic workers encouraging each other online to learn more about language, [or] computer skills; [it] was a good time to return to your ground,” Nur said. The Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), a Singapore-based group that advocates for the rights of migrant workers, reported that there were 1,800 cases of domestic workers suffering from emotional exhaustion between 2019 and 2021. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/culture/2022/09/08/indonesian-workers-abroad-fight-against-unskilled-stereotype-through-community-groups.html
