Singapore Group Calls for Ban on Cleaning of Outside Windows: Singapore - A migrant workers group is calling for a complete ban on maids cleaning the outside of windows. The move comes after seven domestic workers fell to their deaths this year while washing exterior panes or hanging laundry out to dry. The Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home) is aiming to collect 300 individually written letters and send them to the Ministry of Manpower. It has gathered 50 so far from Indonesian maids at an event on Sunday attended by more than 200 workers from the country.
Home president Bridget Tan told The Straits Times that the group was collecting letters to show that it was “serious about solving this problem.” She said she would also send this message to 8,000 domestic foreign workers who are members of a private Facebook group. Tan noted that the seven women who fell to their deaths this year were all Indonesians, adding that maids from the country tend to be timid and less articulate than others. This point was echoed by Ristanti Ningrum, the 28-year-old Indonesian domestic worker leading the petition. She said a close friend of hers did not dare let her elderly employer know about her fear of heights, despite being expected to clean the outside of the windows on the 15th floor.
Ningrum said it was easier to communicate with younger employers, but the older ones tend to insist that the domestic workers do what they are told. “I read in the news that there were six deaths in three months, that is two a month. That was when I knew I had to do something about it,” said Ningrum, who is working for an American employer at a landed property. “We are here to earn a living, not to lose our lives.”
On Sunday, Madam Halimah Yacob, the Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, called for employers to bar their domestic workers from opening window grilles. Maid agencies said Home’s move was a step in the right direction. “It is impossible to clean the outside of the windows without endangering yourself in some way, even if you use the proper tools,” said Eric Lim, director of Jack Focus Employment. However, not everyone was confident that a ban would work.
Benny Liew, director of Comfort Employment, felt it would be hard to police as most employers are not around when the maids clean the windows. “How do you pinpoint who is behind the decision to clean the exterior of the windows if they are caught?” he said. “Often, the helpers are the ones who initiate it without the instructions of the employers, but how do you tell?”
Alvin Tan, who employs a domestic worker from Burma, said that imposing a ban would not prevent deaths. “If you ban the maids, someone still has got to do the job, and the employer will then also be at risk of falling,” said the 46-year-old senior vice-president in an oil and gas company. “This has happened before. The issue is not banning this or that but turning to proper equipment that enhances safety.”
Some Facebook users responded to a Straits Times post on the topic by calling for more safety measures for maids doing this dangerous job. Bridget Xue said, “The real question is to find what safe equipment we can use to clean windows.” However, marketing executive Jeremy Lim from cleaning equipment supplier Karcher said his company does not have any tools made specifically to make it safer to clean the outside of windows. He said this is because Singapore is the only country with such a unique problem.
Meanwhile, some town councils have rejected calls for them to provide mass window-cleaning services. They say they are responsible only for cleaning common areas such as corridors, void decks and staircases. “As windows are not common property, residents are responsible for the cleaning of their own windows, both outside and inside,” said Lee Boon Leng, executive manager at Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council.
Some residents do turn to professional cleaning companies. However, these firms said there is generally little demand from customers who want them to wash the hard-to-reach spots. “Most of them are very understanding,” said Aisha Shah, the 48-year-old manager of Cleanroom Cleaning Service Centre. “We stick a cloth on top of a pole to reach certain corners but they don’t push us to go full out.” However, there are still rare cases of customers being unreasonable. A sales executive from a cleaning company, who asked not to be named, said: “When they make a difficult request, I will instead ask them, ‘how much are you willing to compensate for a lost life?’”
Home president Bridget Tan told The Straits Times that the group was collecting letters to show that it was “serious about solving this problem.” She said she would also send this message to 8,000 domestic foreign workers who are members of a private Facebook group. Tan noted that the seven women who fell to their deaths this year were all Indonesians, adding that maids from the country tend to be timid and less articulate than others. This point was echoed by Ristanti Ningrum, the 28-year-old Indonesian domestic worker leading the petition. She said a close friend of hers did not dare let her elderly employer know about her fear of heights, despite being expected to clean the outside of the windows on the 15th floor.
Ningrum said it was easier to communicate with younger employers, but the older ones tend to insist that the domestic workers do what they are told. “I read in the news that there were six deaths in three months, that is two a month. That was when I knew I had to do something about it,” said Ningrum, who is working for an American employer at a landed property. “We are here to earn a living, not to lose our lives.”
On Sunday, Madam Halimah Yacob, the Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, called for employers to bar their domestic workers from opening window grilles. Maid agencies said Home’s move was a step in the right direction. “It is impossible to clean the outside of the windows without endangering yourself in some way, even if you use the proper tools,” said Eric Lim, director of Jack Focus Employment. However, not everyone was confident that a ban would work.
Benny Liew, director of Comfort Employment, felt it would be hard to police as most employers are not around when the maids clean the windows. “How do you pinpoint who is behind the decision to clean the exterior of the windows if they are caught?” he said. “Often, the helpers are the ones who initiate it without the instructions of the employers, but how do you tell?”
Alvin Tan, who employs a domestic worker from Burma, said that imposing a ban would not prevent deaths. “If you ban the maids, someone still has got to do the job, and the employer will then also be at risk of falling,” said the 46-year-old senior vice-president in an oil and gas company. “This has happened before. The issue is not banning this or that but turning to proper equipment that enhances safety.”
Some Facebook users responded to a Straits Times post on the topic by calling for more safety measures for maids doing this dangerous job. Bridget Xue said, “The real question is to find what safe equipment we can use to clean windows.” However, marketing executive Jeremy Lim from cleaning equipment supplier Karcher said his company does not have any tools made specifically to make it safer to clean the outside of windows. He said this is because Singapore is the only country with such a unique problem.
Meanwhile, some town councils have rejected calls for them to provide mass window-cleaning services. They say they are responsible only for cleaning common areas such as corridors, void decks and staircases. “As windows are not common property, residents are responsible for the cleaning of their own windows, both outside and inside,” said Lee Boon Leng, executive manager at Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council.
Some residents do turn to professional cleaning companies. However, these firms said there is generally little demand from customers who want them to wash the hard-to-reach spots. “Most of them are very understanding,” said Aisha Shah, the 48-year-old manager of Cleanroom Cleaning Service Centre. “We stick a cloth on top of a pole to reach certain corners but they don’t push us to go full out.” However, there are still rare cases of customers being unreasonable. A sales executive from a cleaning company, who asked not to be named, said: “When they make a difficult request, I will instead ask them, ‘how much are you willing to compensate for a lost life?’”
Singapore Teacher Pleads Guilty to Caning Indonesian Maid Repeatedly: An employer told her Indonesian maid that she would be caned if she made mistakes. After she was caned repeatedly by the employer — who is a teacher — the maid sought help from a neighbor’s domestic worker. The neighbor’s maid noticed the bruises and her employer took the 24-year-old victim to the police.
On Monday, Lee Meng Choo, 54, pleaded guilty to abusing Sri Maryati. The teacher at Junyuan Secondary School could be spared jail, as Senior District Judge See Kee Oon ordered a pre-sentence report to gauge her suitability for probation. Lee suffers from dysthymia, a less severe form of chronic depression. Defence lawyer Subhas Anandan said Jerome Goh of the Institute of Mental Health and defence psychiatrist Tommy Tan had agreed that Lee was unable to fully appreciate the consequences of the offences because of her mental condition.
The lawyer also said the performance of Sri, who was hired in December 2008, was ‘abysmal’ from the start. His client had wanted to send her back to the agency, but the maid pleaded to stay. Lee suggested that she be caned if she made mistakes — the same punishment Lee meted out to her son, now 11. Deputy Public Prosecutor Ramu Miyapan told the court that at 8 p.m. on Aug 9, 2009, the maid was caned on the buttocks for using Lee’s toothbrush to clean the wash basin. The maid denied doing so, but was made to stand facing the front door as an added punishment. Some 15 minutes later, Lee dragged the maid by the ear into the kitchen for clogging up the kitchen sink. Sri’s ear bled.
At about 2:30 a.m. the next day, Lee asked the maid to check her son’s homework. Sri fell asleep, and at 7:30 a.m. that morning, she was caned on the buttocks and back. About three hours later, Lee caned the maid’s palm for setting the alarm clock wrongly. Later that day, Sri sought help from the neighbor’s maid. The case will next be heard on May 23. If probation is not recommended, Lee could be jailed for up to three years and/or fined $7,500.
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| A cleaner washing away the blood stains at the scene after the body of the deceased was moved. |
Indonesian maid found dead at foot of Punggol flat: An Indonesian maid in her thirties was found dead at the foot of a flat in Punggol Edgedale Plains on Thursday morning. The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it received a call to Block 174C Edgedale Plains at about 5:25am. Paramedics who arrived at the scene shortly afterwards pronounced her dead. According to Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao, she was believed to be cleaning the windows in the flat when she fell.
Residents said the deceased lived in a unit on the fifth floor with an elderly person. A 64-year-old housewife, who lives at the third floor of the block, said her son heard a loud thump at about 5:20 am. He did not think much about it and continued on his activities. Another resident said that at about 6:30am police had arrived and cordoned off the area. The body was covered with a white plastic sheet and removed shortly.
According to the resident, who declined to be named, police went from door to door asking residents if there was any one missing from their flats. Shortly, she witnessed an elderly woman identify the body as her maid. Women falling to their deaths when trying to clean windows or hang laundry from high-rise flats are usually reported every year. Just last month, a 64-year-old housewife had fallen to her death from her HDB flat in Bishan while standing on a chair and cleaning a window in her flat.
Between 2006 and 2010, 27 foreign maids have died from fatal falls while washing windows or hanging out bamboo poles of clothes. Last year, an Indonesian maid fell seven storeys from a flat in Queenstown while hanging the laundry out of the window. In another related incident, a four-year-old boy died last week after a fatal fall from his five-storey flat in Jurong West. Police are still investigating the incident.
How to prevent maids from falling out of windows : There has been many reports of maids who fell to their deaths when cleaning windows or hanging laundry in high rise flats. Employers are expected to be responsible for anything bad that happens to the maids. However, we all know that maids are not robots, they are human beings, which means that if you tell a maid NOT to do something, she may not listen to you. I have a wonderful maid, but when I told her not to clean windows or hang out laundry, she said : "Nevermind lah mam, nothing will happen lah". Since I am at work all day, there is no way I can keep watching her while she works. So this is what I did : I locked all the window grilles in my flat, and kept the key in a safe place so that my maid cannot find it. There is no way she can open the grilles and she can only clean the interior of the windows. However, since my service balcony is so small, sometimes my maid still wants to hang laundry outside, even though I told her not to do so. I bought the locks from Daiso as shown in the photo below. This way the maid can open the window grille so that there is a small gap for her to hang out the laundry, and it is safe because the gap is too small for her body to pass through. Note; that you can get blacklisted if you ask your maid to clean the windows or hang out laundry without safety measures
Residents said the deceased lived in a unit on the fifth floor with an elderly person. A 64-year-old housewife, who lives at the third floor of the block, said her son heard a loud thump at about 5:20 am. He did not think much about it and continued on his activities. Another resident said that at about 6:30am police had arrived and cordoned off the area. The body was covered with a white plastic sheet and removed shortly.
According to the resident, who declined to be named, police went from door to door asking residents if there was any one missing from their flats. Shortly, she witnessed an elderly woman identify the body as her maid. Women falling to their deaths when trying to clean windows or hang laundry from high-rise flats are usually reported every year. Just last month, a 64-year-old housewife had fallen to her death from her HDB flat in Bishan while standing on a chair and cleaning a window in her flat.
Between 2006 and 2010, 27 foreign maids have died from fatal falls while washing windows or hanging out bamboo poles of clothes. Last year, an Indonesian maid fell seven storeys from a flat in Queenstown while hanging the laundry out of the window. In another related incident, a four-year-old boy died last week after a fatal fall from his five-storey flat in Jurong West. Police are still investigating the incident.
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