3/31/2007

The Evil corner

The Evil corner While we crow about how first world we are, how many millionaires and billionaires we have, how many millions should our top officials be rewarded, and all the good lives, let's not ignore the little evil corners that live among us. As we gain material wealth and comfort, and a better quality of life, as we upgrade ourselves to a position where all the menial tasks are done by maids, we should not forget that maids are human lives, just like everyone of us. The incidents of maids being ironed or becoming a punching bag have not appeared on our papers for a while. Maybe our evil corners have behaved a little better. Maybe not and the ironing and punching have continued but not reported. But the ill treatment of the maids is still going on going by the number of distress calls that the help agencies are receiving. The Indonesian Family Network group alone received 45 calls for help. And 25 of the calls were for food deprivation where employers deprived their maids of food or feeding them with leftovers or nothing at all. These inhuman acts within our society is a shame and make us no better than animals. First world? And for these things to happen regularly, daily, only speak on the mentality of a people, all the way from top down, that they could live with such human cruelties. By not doing anything about them is as good as being an accomplice to the crime against humanities. The perpetuators of such acts must be dealt with seriously, instantly and shame, yes shame publicly. Let such crimes be wiped out completely from this so called first world island, and completely from their mentality that this can be tolerated. There are laws provided to deal with the culprits. But for so many incidents to repeat itself daily means that it is not enough. It has to be stopped immediately if we are to be seen as a civilised people. When the evil corners are still thriving and lurking among us, let's stop crowing about how great we are as a people and as a nation. Ok, after airing a little conscience, let's start to justify about how many millions shall one get.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are making really unfair and untrue generalisations about Singaporean employers.

It is sad, and true that some maids will suffer abuse from their employers, and that will always be the case when the maids are virtually paid slaves.

There will always be people who "over-value" their contribution and think that their $300-400 a month maid's wage is damn "big", which I suppose gives certain employers a feeling of "power".

Public condemnation is a good way to encourage "behaviour modification" in employers with a tendency toward violence and cruelty.

A blog or a website could be set up where maids could come and post anonymously about their employers (who will have to remain anonymous to avoid libel and slander lawsuits against the blog or website owner)

Once proven to be guilty by due process, however, the identities of the cruel employers can be made public.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

no lah, how can you say that. i am saying a corner only lah, the little evil corner : )

and people abetting such inhuman acts are accomplices and must also be kicked in the arse. this is basic human decency.