KUALA LUMPUR: The first batch of Indonesian maids arrived three days ago, after Indonesia froze the maids to Malaysia in June 2009 and decided to lift the ban on Dec 1 last year.

The 29 women from East Java were introduced to their respective employers at a special ceremony here Saturday and will begin work immediately.

Indonesia imposed the ban in June 2009 after a number of cases of abuse emerged.

Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) president Jeffrey Foo said the re-entry of the Indonesian maids was via a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Malaysia and Indonesia, which was finalised last November.

He said the MoU would secure the well-being of maids from the neighbouring country, especially with regard to payment of salary and scope of duties.

"The employer is now obliged to open a special account for Indonesian maids to remit their salary, which would be monitored to ensure no manipulation," Foo told reporters during the ceremony.

He said the duties of the maids were confined to household tasks and it was their discretion whether to accept the additional responsibility of looking after a child or senior citizen.

"The employers are not allowed to force, or lodge a complaint if their maids are not efficient in looking after a toddler because it is not the latter's expertise," he said.

He said each maid would get a day off in a week, and this did not necessarily be during the weekend.

"If the employer requests the maid to work on her off day, the former must pay her RM27 for the day's work, which is not included in her RM700 monthly salary," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, Papa had received 3,000 requests for domestic workers. - Bernama

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