Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Sutinah's chores start early and end late, day in and day out.

The 18-year-old from the Central Java town of Purwodadi is a housemaid for a working couple with three children aged five, three and one. She wakes at 4 a.m. to prepare breakfast, do the laundry and clean the house. When the children awake, she helps bathe them.

"After preparing breakfast for the children, I carry the youngest around, singing him Javanese lullabies until he sleeps. Then, I help the children's grandmother bathe and prepare her breakfast."

She does ironing while cooking lunch and dinner, and helps out with other household work during the evening.

Sutinah goes to bed at 11 p.m., stealing five hours of sleep before the next workday. With no holiday, it is the same routine for her every day of the week.

Sutinah has worked for the family for five years, receiving a monthly salary of Rp 300,000 (about US$33) plus an annual bonus and a trip home for the post-fasting month holiday of Idul Fitri.

Demand for domestic workers in big cities, both at home and overseas, is increasing. Employing household help, long a tradition in Indonesian society, has remained important even with the adoption of modern lifestyles. The number of housemaids in Jakarta increased to several million in 2006 from 860,000 in 2000, NGO Rumpun Gema Perempuan reported.

Most of the workers are low-educated women, including teenagers, from rural areas, who come to Jakarta and other major cities to support their families back home. Their employers, increasingly, are dual career couples needing their help to balance work and family responsibilities.

Despite the growing demand for their services, housemaids have not been classified as a formal sector regulated by the labor and social security laws. There are no clear labor standards, including on minimum wages, fringe benefits, set working hours and social security programs.

Left out of the core labor standards and legal protection, most housemaids work for more than 12 hours a day and are denied their basic human rights.

Isolated from the public eye, they also are acutely vulnerable to exploitation, physical and sexual abuse. But few cases ever make it to court. For one, it's difficult to document the exploitation and abuse, and the police are reluctant to enter into the domestic sphere. Housemaids also are prevented from reporting the abuse to the authorities, or do not know who to turn to.

There have been exceptions, however, when widespread media exposure of horrific abuse cases, including the killing of maids, promoted law enforcers to act.

Women's rights activist Taty Krisnawaty said the 2004 enactment of the domestic violence law helped in preventing housemaids, mostly women, from suffering physical and sexual abuse, but it was not adequate to provide protection for all their needs.

"The absence of labor contract has also allowed employers to treat their maids arbitrarily, such as making them work 12 hours a day or withholding their pay."

Taty said despite its informal status, household employment must be regulated and based on human rights adopted by the Amended 1945 Constitution, with housemaids deserving the legal protection and equal treatment afforded formal workers.

"In line with the increasing demand in the domestic market, household jobs must be regulated under a law as a token of our commitment to human rights."

ILO chief technical adviser Lotte Kejser said the exclusion of housemaids from the labor law and social security programs was actually the worst form of discrimination, and contravened the Constitution and an ILO convention ratified by Indonesia.

A law is urgently needed to improve the status of domestic workers and make household employment a profession for uneducated workers, she said, saying it was regulated as a profession with core labor standards in developed nations.

• Housemaids are mostly women aged between 13 and 25, low-educated, poor and from rural areas
• 87 percent housemaids work 10 to 12 hours a day
• 54 percent of housemaids have annual leave amounting to less than 12 days
• 28 percent are not allowed to take annual leave and communicate with their family
• 68 percent of housemaids experience psychological burdens (frequent reprimanding and verbal abuse)
• 93 percent suffer physical abuse
• A further 42 percent are sexually abused
• The Criminal Code has been bound inapplicable for processing violations against housemaids.

[Source: Rumpun Gema Perempuan, 2006.]