Malaysia mulls action over absconding foreign maids

Malaysia is considering stern action against maid agencies that encourage foreign housemaids to abscond from the homes where they are supposed to work, a minister said yesterday.

"Ministry officials will examine the present mechanism to allow stern action to be taken against agents who encourage foreign maids to run away," Home Affairs Minister Mohamad Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said, according to the state Bernama news agency.

An average of 1,200 foreign domestic workers run away every month and that number was rising, the minister said.

"The government will examine the cause of the problem, whether it is the agent or the weakness of existing regulations," Radzi said.

He did not discount the possibility that some agencies encouraged domestic workers to abscond to place them in other households.

"This can happen because according to current regulations, only the household is fined when it has to reapply to get a new maid to replace the one who ran away," Radzi said.

Malaysia employs some 350,000 foreign maids, 95 percent of whom are Indonesians. There are also about 20,000 Filipino maids.

The minister said he would hold a meeting with Indonesia's labour minister, Erman Suparno, at the end of May to discuss problems with the rules over migrant labour, especially domestic workers.