Scholar says a mechanism to supervise work agencies is urgent

Cecilia Ho

The lack of further legislation to regulate the work of employment agencies leads to abuse that affect non-resident workers in Macau, according to Cecilia Ho, Social Work lecturer at the Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM).
The scholar explains that these workers are often forced to pay “excessive” recruitment fees to agencies and advocates for the creation of an evaluation system for agencies, and the “blacklisting” of those who don’t abide by the law.
“The most urgent matter concerning domestic helpers is the creation of a mechanism to supervise employment agencies and the creation of an evaluation system that protects the employer and domestic helpers,” Cecilia Ho told Lusa news.
The scholar accuses the agencies of trying to bypass the legislation. In spite of not being allowed to receive any recruitment fee from domestic helpers, those agencies “charge for training fees, air tickets, housing and food fees as well as medical exams that were already paid for at the country of origin of the employees,” she says.
Cecilia Ho (who also directed the award winning 2009 documentary “HERstory – Jeritan,” which recounts the story of a Indonesian migrant worker) argues that the model for a mechanism to evaluate agencies already exists and is being enforced in Taiwan, whereas agencies that act accordingly are classified with an ‘a.’  Those that commit mild violations are classified with a ‘b,’ and the worst are classified with a ‘d’ mark, which opens grounds for the cancelation of the license.
Cindri Purnasari, 34, is an Indonesian citizen who has been living in Macau since 2004. She claims that she had to pay fees to agencies several times. “When I arrived in Macau there were only two or three agencies. I was lucky. They only deducted my salary (MOP2,500 at the time) during three months,” she says.
George Young, a member of the Peduli Indonesian Migrant Concern Group, stresses that the migrant workers start paying fees before they arrive in Macau. “There are many middle men who demand money for everything under the sun. Sometimes migrants have to pay MOP20,000 besides the money they have to pay to bribe people in order to make feasible their departure from Indonesia [to work abroad],” he says.
Mr Young says that these obstacles increase the debt burden faced by young women before they leave their home country. “They need to borrow a lot of money and probably won’t be able to repay it after one year working here. Sometimes they need two or three years to repay, because they also need to send money back to their families,” he says.  MDT/Lusa