Singapore Maids Banned From Cleaning Outside Windows

Filipino maid Joycelyn Bernadas started wearing a safety belt to clean the windows of her employer's seventh-storey flat two years ago. Her employer Joyce Chua bought the $15 belt from a hardware shop after reading reports of maids falling to their deaths.

Maid wears safety belt before cleaning windows (1.8m nylon rope bought by employer secures Filipino's waist to grille). Singapore. Whenever Filipino maid Joycelyn Bernadas cleans the windows of her employer’s seventh-storey flat, she slips on a safety belt first. The nylon rope secures her waist to the aluminium window grille. Her employer Joyce Chua bought the belt two years ago after reading reports of maids falling to their deaths while cleaning the outside of high-rise windows or hanging out clothes to dry. “She is like our own family member and we can’t afford to lose her,” said Chua, 49.

This year, 11 domestic workers have fallen from a height at work, of which eight died. All eight were Indonesians and had fallen to their deaths while cleaning the outside of windows or hanging laundry out to dry. The spate of accidents has prompted involvement from the Indonesian embassy. Chua bought the 1.8 millimeter belt for about $15 from a hardware shop — she is the director of an electrical and construction company, said her workers use industrial harnesses at work. Her family moved from a landed property to the five-room HDB flat in Chai Chee Avenue about four years ago.

Bernadas, 46, has worked for the family for 20 years. She takes care of Chua’s three daughters and does the housework — she cleans the outside of the windows once or twice a year. Bernadas said she was nervous when they moved to the flat and she had to clean the windows and put out the laundry, and is glad she has the belt. “I think wearing the safety belt is troublesome, but I feel safer with it,” she said. As to why the outside of windows had to be cleaned, Chua said: “A lot of dust collects on the windows over a year so we can’t just stop cleaning altogether. But we won’t force her to reach the parts of the windows that are too high up.”

She acknowledged that using the safety belt may not be a complete lifesaver as the hook is fastened to the aluminum grille, which is not as sturdy as one made of iron. The safety belt is also not approved for industrial use, and is suitable only for light cleaning jobs. “It is not 100 percent safe, but it is still a lifeline,” said Ms Chua. The Ministry of Manpower said that from 2007 to last year, 69 foreign domestic workers fell from a height at work, of which 24 were fatal and 45 non-fatal. The ministry said that maids who fell from heights varied across age, experience and nationalities.

Indonesian Embassy Counsellor Sukmo Yuwono said most of the eight Indonesian maids who fell to their deaths this year had been working in Singapore for less than a year. But incidents in previous years include experienced maids. “It is not an issue of how experienced the maids are,” Sukmo said. “The problem is that Singapore employers make their maids clean the outside of windows and hang laundry outside their apartments. “Employers in Hong Kong do not ask their maids to do things like this and we don’t have the problem of maids falling down there,” he added.

Various government leaders and maid activists have called for more to be done to prevent such deaths. Last month, Madam Halimah Yacob, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, called for maids to be barred from opening window grilles and for employers to keep the keys to these grilles from their maids. From today, employers of new Indonesian maids working in high-rise buildings must also sign an undertaking to not allow them to hang clothes outside flats and clean the exterior of windows.

Maid agency owners said having the safety clause in the contract is a step in the right direction, but added that the onus is on employers to ensure their maids abide by it. “Employers should not ask their maids to do dangerous tasks. Sometimes, their maids may forget and employers have to remind them that their safety comes first,” said Best Home Employment director Tay Khoon Beng: But some employers said that the new rule was not practical. Sales manager Lynette Lim, 39, who employs an Indonesian maid, said: “How else are we going to hang our clothes?”

Police investigate the death of a 34-year-old Indonesian maid who fell from a window in Singapore recently.

New Rule in Singapore to Curb High-Rise Falls of Indonesian Maids: (Singapore). New Indonesian maids here will no longer be allowed to clean out-facing windows or hang laundry outside high-rise homes. This rule, released by the Indonesian government yesterday to The Straits Times, is part of a contract new maids and their employers will now have to sign before the maids can work here. It is effective from today.

Maid agencies and worker welfare groups said such a clause signals employers to take the maids’ safety seriously. Lawyers, however, said that while the contract may be binding to the signed parties, the rule would be difficult to enforce as no one could monitor what maids do. Responding to this development, the Ministry of Manpower yesterday said that employers should consider this rule when hiring Indonesian maids. It said that there is already a standard employment contract for all foreign maids in Singapore, and that it exercises “rigorous enforcement” when lapses in safety put lives at risk.

The new clause is part of a document that includes other clauses, such as on insurance and salary, and was formerly applicable only to maids renewing their contracts. The document was introduced by the Indonesian government about three years ago. Indonesia Embassy Counsellor Sukmo Yuwono said he hoped applying the clause to new maids would reduce the number of maid deaths from falling. This year, eight have died while cleaning windows, or putting laundry out to dry.

John Gee, an executive committee member of Transient Workers Count Too, a worker welfare group, said that although the Singapore Government was not obliged to enforce the agreement, it was still a step in the right direction. There are about 103,000 Indonesian maids in Singapore.

Also see here, here & here.

Another Indonesian maid falls to her death in Singapore

Sudden death: An Indonesian maid's body lies at the foot of a Woodlands apartment building in Singapore on Thursday. She fell from the ninth floor.

Another Indonesian maid falls to her death in Singapore, 8th case this year: An Indonesian maid fell to her death from the ninth floor of a Woodlands flat on Thursday, apparently while cleaning windows. This is the eighth incident of a maid meeting such a fate this year. Last year, four maids died this way. The latest incident happened at about 6:20 p.m. at Block 801 Woodlands Street 81. A stool and cleaning materials were believed to have been found next to the window that the 25-year-old fell from.

A first-floor resident, who said he heard a loud thump, looked out of the window and saw the victim lying on a grass patch. "She hit the roof of the small balcony attached to my flat first before falling onto the grass," said the 18-year-old, who did not want to be named. "The sound was so loud, I thought a car accident had happened," added the student. According to him, the two children of the maid's employers were also at the scene and looked very shocked.

Neighbors said the maid had been working for four to five months for a family of four. The couple have a son in secondary school and a daughter in primary school. Neighbors described the victim as small-built and quiet. According to Chinese-language newspaper Shin Min Daily, only the children were at home when the incident happened. On Friday, the parents declined to be interviewed when The Straits Times visited their flat.

In the past five years, 24 maids have fallen to their deaths while working. Some 14 employers have been fined for putting their maids in the way of danger. Contacted on Friday, Halimah Yacob, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, emphasized that safety precautions have to be taken. “Employers should look at alternative ways to hang the clothes or clean the windows if it's too dangerous,” said Halimah, who has spoken out several times before about the welfare of maids.

On Tuesday, The Straits Times reported that migrant worker group Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics had started a petition to ban maids from cleaning the outside of windows. When contacted, the Manpower Ministry said it is “gravely concerned” about the recent spate of accidents involving maids. “We will also continue to explore what more can be done with our relevant stakeholders to prevent such unnecessary deaths,” said a spokesman. Police are investigating Thursday's incident as an unnatural death.

Singapore Group Call For Ban On Cleaning Windows

Singapore Group Call For Ban On Cleaning Windows

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?’”

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.

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

Minister "Urges No High Rise Window Cleaning" - Singapore

Dicing with death: A Singapore maid leans out of a high-rise window to make sure she does a thorough job.

Don't risk your lives cleaning windows, urges Singapore minister after 7 maids fall to their deaths leaning out of high-rise buildings: A Singapore minister has urged maids to take extra care after a spate of deaths of women falling from high-rise buildings while cleaning windows. Madam Halimah Yacob, Singapore's Minister of State for Community Development, issued the urgent warning after seven women fell to their deaths climbing onto high-rise ledges to clean the outside of windows.

A warning has been sent out to employers in Singapore, insisting that domestic cleaning staff do not have to clean the outside of windows in high-rise homes. Young women are often pictured taking their lives in their own hands by perching perilously on window ledges just to make sure they do a thorough job. Some simply lean out of windows while sat inside the building, but others stand completely isolated on high-rise window ledges with no protective equipment. The hugely dangerous practice has seen seven maids fall to their death this year in Singapore, with the latest fatality coming just last week.

Safety first: Singapore authorities have since demonstrated how cleaners should act, by taking more care and not leaning out of windows. Click to enlarge.

Madam Halimah said employers should drum the message into their cleaners about being careful while doing the windows. She said: 'Once they do that, I think, we will be able to save a lot of lives.' Madam Halimah added that the recent spate of deaths was 'very sad' as many of the maids were young women from nearby villages. She also called for maids to be barred from opening window grilles and employers to keep the keys to these grilles from their cleaners.

Singaporeans have been urged not to insist that their domestic workers clean the outside of windows in high-rise homes.

Latest Indonesian Maid Death Prompts Warning from Singapore Minister:  Singaporeans have been urged not to insist that their domestic workers clean the outside of windows in high-rise homes. Halimah Yacob, the Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, said on Sunday that there was no need for the outside of windows to be cleaned if they were already clean on the inside. She was responding to reporters’ questions about the seven Indonesian maids who had fallen to their deaths so far this year while cleaning windows or hanging out the laundry.

Speaking on the sidelines of a graduation ceremony for Indonesian domestic workers who had earned academic qualifications at the Indonesian School in Singapore, she called for maids to be barred from opening window grilles and for employers to keep the keys to these grilles from their maids. “They must constantly drum that into the maid’s head - that there’s no need for her to open the grilles, there’s no need for her to clean the outside of windows - and once they do that, they will be able to save a lot of lives,” she said. “It’s unnecessary death, and it’s really very sad.”

Halimah, who has spoken out several times about the welfare of maids and foreign workers, noted that many foreign domestic workers here are from rural villages and thus unused to high-rise buildings. “Having to work in such high-rise buildings is quite a nightmare for them, so we need to take extra precautions to protect them, without compromising the standard and quality of work at home,” she said. She said she was pleased that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) was looking into the matter.

MOM is improving a compulsory half-day safety-training class for newly arrived maids, which will be part of a new mandatory settling-in program for them. It has also said it will prosecute employers who fail to give their maids a safe work environment. “They want to make sure that these incidents are not repeated because, frankly, there’s no need for our domestic workers to fall to their deaths. We just need to take precautions, particularly on the part of employers,” Halimah said.

Police investigate the death of a 34-year-old Indonesian maid who fell from a window in Singapore last week.

Young Armenian woman falls from window, dies (Yerevan) – An unfortunate incident occurred Friday in Armenia’s Abovyan city, Aravot daily writes. “Varduhi Petrosyan, 24, an Abovyan city apartment resident, fell while cleaning her home’s windows, and she died on the spot. She was living on the sixth floor of a nine-storey building. The neighbors told that she was married and had a small girl. In addition, according to the neighbors, she was pregnant. But this has to be either confirmed or denied by forensic medical examination. The investigation department is preparing a report on the case,” Aravot writes.