Papa: Go by the book when employing foreign maids
KUALA LUMPUR: Employers who opt to take the easy way out in employing foreign maids are putting themselves at risk, says Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) president Jeffrey Foo.
He said employers need to have two documents – labour supplying licence and Immigration registration certificate – if they want to employ foreign maids via the agencies.
“The name and address printed on both documents must be the same with the address where the agency is operating (to show its legitimacy),” he said yesterday.
The labour supplying licence is a yellow document with a red stamp on it while the Immigration registration certificate is a white-coloured document.
Besides those documents, Foo also urged employers to sign a mutually-agreed agreement with various terms and conditions such as guarantee period, maid replacement, salary and contract duration before making any payments to the agency.
“This allows the employer to get compensation during the guaranteed period, ranging from three to six months, such as maid replacement, based on the agreement that both parties had agreed upon,” he said, adding that one-month long guarantee agreement should not be signed by any employer.
Employers can also verify the legitimacy of the agencies by logging onto http://jtksm.mohr.gov. my/, a website operated by the Human Resources Ministry.
“From the website, you can get the name and address of the agency.
“This can prevent a person from employing maids from agencies which are not listed in the website,” he said.
Since 2014, a total of 17 maidrelated cases have been lodged with MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong. Half of the cases involved runaway maids.
Chong said the maid agencies were not association members and were thus illegal.
“Usually, these illegal agencies will give many excuses such as refusal to provide refunds to clients and showed no responsibility when such problems arise,” he told a press conference at Wisma MCA yesterday.
The public can lodge a report along with RM5 with the Consumer Claims Tribunal to complain of maid agencies’ unethical actions.
Chong said it may be difficult to issue a summons to illegal agencies as it is difficult to verify their particulars such as agency addresses, thus is best for employers to verify the legitimacy of the agencies first.