Maids Are Human Too!

"[My employer] threw hot water on me when she got angry. She said I was wrong… my work was not good enough…She also threw the boiler at me and once she almost used an iron to hit me"…

"I cleaned the house, cooked, swept the floor, and took care of the children… every day from five in the morning until midnight." No breaks were allowed. "The only time I could go outside was when I hung clothes to dry… once a week… My employer said, ‘girls are not allowed to go outside’."

"[I slept] in the kitchen... with no mattress… just on the floor. I didn't have a key [to the room]. I felt cold… scared… My employer locked me in the room [every evening], saying it was for my protection. I couldn’t go to the bathroom during the night".


Her second employer spat on her "in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night", and did not give her any salary. While she was there she slept in the storage room: ‘there was no door…and it was very small. There were lots of things around and it was smelly". The third employer shouted at her continuously and slapped her frequently. Once she was not given food for three days. There, she was forced to work from 5am until 1am without any day of rest.

(from testimony of Ratna, an Indonesian domestic worker in Amnesty International Report on domestic workers in Indonesia).