Sri Wahyuni, Yogyakarta – A theater performance in the city during the weekend pulls in a packed house, but this is no usual theater audience. Instead of middle class actors playing to an upwardly mobile crowd, this was a play about and by "the help".
Domestic workers watched as the narrative unfolded, a disturbing story about the obscure and sometimes awful fate of maids and nannies in the country, which they have staged and prepared.
The two hour-drama, Suara Kehidupan (The Sound of Life), held in the Purna Budaya building in Bulaksumur, was created by members of the Tunas Mulia domestic worker association, some of whom were taking a course especially designed to improve their skills in dealing with employers.
Both the association and the school were established with the help of the Tjoet Njak Dien Women's Forum, or as it is better-known, the Rumpun Tjoet Njak Dien, one of the few non-government organizations in the country that is concerned about the welfare of domestic workers.
Named after the country's famous Acehnese heroine, Tjoet Njak Dien, the organization has had many name changes since it was first known as the Yogyakarta Women's Discussion Forum when it opened in 1989.
But nothing has changed in the organization that has from the beginning specialized in the empowerment of and advocacy for woman employees, primarily domestic workers.
"Problems related to the employment of PRT (domestic workers) have existed for a long time and they are crucial ones. Yet this issue is being ignored by the government, the legislature, and the public," group chairwoman Lita Anggraeni told The Jakarta Post.
The acronym PRT is generally known as the abbreviation of pembantu rumah tangga (domestic house maids) but Rumpun Tjoet Njak Dien uses it to stand for pekerja rumah tangga or (domestic workers) to highlight the fact that these women in the past have often not been regarded as workers at all.
"This is ironic indeed, especially because these women have contributed a great deal to helping millions of families in the country. They have taken over the domestic work of millions of pairs of husbands and wives who work in the public or private sector and have made it possible for these couples to carry on in their own jobs," Lita said.
Recent data shows that more than 2.5 million women and girls are working as domestic workers, more of 600,000 of whom are still children. However, Lita predicts the total number of these workers is at least twice as high.
"We calculate about a third of Indonesian families, mostly those in cities who are of the middle and upper income groups, are employing domestic workers," Lita said.
Elusive Yet, regardless of their vital roles in millions of homes across the country, the public's appreciation of this occupation is still low, she says.
This is illustrated by the low wages that average domestic workers receive. The data from the National Statistic Office (BPS) shows that up to November this year the average monthly salary of a domestic worker in the country is Rp 146.851, slightly higher compared to that of October of the same year of only Rp 145.932. "It's far below the regional minimum wage of Yogyakarta province, which is some Rp 400,000 a month," Lita said.
Unfortunately, bad wages are not the only problem domestic workers in this country face. As most come from marginalized families, have limited educations and work out of the public eye in private homes, they are also highly vulnerable to forms of violence – physical, sexual, psychological and economic.
Domestic workers also have limited access, or none at all to outside help. In many cases, their abuse is only publicly known after it becomes life-threatening or workers die.
The case of Sunarsih who died after being tortured (Surabaya, 2001); Maryati who was murdered (Jakarta, this year); Sisamah, Halimah, and Ratih who were sent to hospitals after being beaten (also in Surabaya between 2001-2002); and N who was raped (Surakarta, this year) are only a few of the worst examples.
"The working area of a PRT, which is considered private and is often impervious to legal intervention from outside, has been blamed as the main cause of such violence and has left the public largely unaware of the problems they face," Lita said.
What was as saddening was that the many stories of abuse had not yet moved the government or the public to consider the need for legal guarantees and protections for domestic workers, she said.
Confronted with these basic recurring problems, Rumpun Tjoet Njak Dien staff have been creative in finding solutions – through both structural and cultural approaches.
"Our main goal is the issuance of government regulations for PRT at the regental and municipal levels and the creation of either a law on domestic workers or an amendment to the existing law on manpower that accommodates PRT as workers," Lita said. The organization welcomed the passing of Law No 23/2004 on the eradication of domestic violence, which it considered a step toward protecting domestic workers.
"But we still have a lot work to do to make them legally and socially considered, treated, and protected as workers." A main concern was the long hours most domestic employees in the country worked in jobs that did not have clear descriptions.
Anecdotal evidence was that most maids and nannies worked between 10 and 15 hours a day and had to do almost all the domestic work of families they worked for without any formal description of their tasks, Lita said. As a result, they had limited time to rest, much less to socialize. "These workers are human beings and they deserve to be treated as such," she said.
Compartmentalizing its goals to better achieve them, the group spends a lot of time organizing the workers – providing them with assertiveness training to deal with potentially violent situations, informing them of where to go to get help should they need it, and, most importantly, helping the workers prepare a draft for a employment contract.
At the community level, the organization periodically campaigns to increase public awareness about the conditions of domestic workers and the rights they deserve. At the legislative level, members lobby local legislative councils and governments to issue regulations.
Their efforts have shown promising results. At the provincial level in Yogyakarta, Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X last year issued a decree requiring the municipality and the four regencies in the province to issue regional regulations on domestic workers.
However, while these regulations existed in theory, little was being done to ensure they were being enforced, Lita said. "As I have said, we still have a lot to do to make domestic workers legally and socially protected."