A third article of mine is up online now at The Nut Graph as the lead story, whatever that implies. Originally entitled, 'Domestic Discord', the piece aims to look at the legal responsibilities we have towards domestic helpers and how our worries about crime—home invasion, specifically—have been conflated with xenophobic racism to create a reactionary resistance to the question of mandatory leave for maids. It does not cover all objections to the new legislation, most of which I think are irrational anyway, but hopefully it will get people to stop mixing issues and forming half-baked conclusions based on muddled thinking.
On a related note, do watch the episode of 101 East entitled 'Citizen Army' (parts one and two) for a report on the surprisingly unaccountable Ikatan Relawan Rakyat Malaysia, or RELA Corps, and their unsupervised activities against migrant workers.
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Update, 26th June 2009:
Another 101 East episode (parts one and two), this time on Asian women working abroad as domestic helpers and the problems they face.
Also, P Gunasegaran of The Star wrote a good article on the maids' mandatory leave legislation that basically echoes the points I made in my piece for The Nut Graph but delves more into the operational aspects of the entire domestic helper industry.
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