17 hours a day for 420 consecutive days work, denial of human rights, institutionalized exploitation, profiteering agencies and sexual abuse. An account of my time is Singapore. When I was younger, in the Philippines, I always used to dream of working overseas. So many Filipinos work away from home. I heard lots of stories of how you can earn more money, how there are more opportunities and in some cases you can even have the chance to settle abroad and send for your family. I dreamt big. I thought working overseas would be a positive experience for me and my family. My story is like that of hundreds, even thousands of other women that come to work here. I was married. I had a child. My marriage didn’t work out. I became a single parent with added responsibilities and no support from my child’s father. With hope and courage and curiosity I headed for my dream so I could provide for my family and give my son a better future. The application process in the Philippines to become a domestic worker takes a lot of patience and money. Along with paying for and obtaining a passport you need medical certificates, police clearance, local authority clearance and a P15,000 placement fee that goes to the recruiting agent. Of course most applicants don’t have this placement fee and the other monies needed as like me they have families to support and are mostly out of work. Sometimes a family will get together to raise the money. Mostly, loans are taken out from any available source to pay the fees.

I arrived in Singapore on April 12th 2006, 5.30pm Singapore time. I had been told ahead of time to wait at the airport as someone would find me and instruct me what to do on arrival. I was very nervous being in a foreign country for the first time, a 24 year old country girl in the big city. In less than 30 minutes our names were called and we had to proceed through immigration with our temporary work passes. Once through we had to wait in the arrival area for our agents to pick us up. After around 3 hrs a Chinese man called my name. By that time I was starting to get a little nervous and was tired and hungry. Unfortunately I had no money to buy food or call my family to let them know I was ok.

My first impressions of Singapore were of a beautiful, green, safe, industrialised and advanced country. The standard of living from just the little I had seen seemed so high. It seemed idyllic. Sadly I was soon to see an ugly side of this city that no tourist or business traveller will ever see, hidden away behind the closed doors of the estates and condominiums island wide.

I was hired by a Singaporean couple with two children. One aged 2 years old and the other just 3 months. They lived in an HDB towards the north of the island. At that time I knew little about any rights I might have or the working situation I would be in. I was young, naive and in a foreign country with more debt than I’d ever had in my life before. I didn’t have a copy of any contract. I only had the number of my agent.

The terms and conditions of my employment were very harsh. Looking back now at how I was exploited, and how thousands of women continue to be exploited I feel incredibly angry.

I was naive and vulnerable and paid for it with 14 months of my life. First time maids are desirable as we are considered more compliant. We have massive debts and are afraid of losing our jobs, of being sent back home to face the loan sharks and disappoint our families. We don’t know how the system works and are afraid to speak out.

The terms and conditions of my employment were:

•	For the first six months of my employment I received a $20 allowance per month until I had paid off my agency fees.
•	After that I had a salary of $320 per month but still needed to pay my agents debt in the Philippines and for my own personal items.
•	My passport and Work Permit were taken off me.
•	I had no days off.
•	I was not allowed a mobile phone.
•	I was never allowed out of the house unless accompanied by my employer.
•	I was never allowed to speak to or contact anyone outside of the home.
•	My salary was put into a joint account with my employers. I never had access to my own money or bank book.
•	I could never use the house phone without express permission. I was granted one 15 minute call per month home to my family and infant son.

Working for this family was hard, but I am sad to say that from what I saw in the same HDB estate THIS WAS TYPICAL WORKING CONDITIONS.

I would wake at 5.30am and usually finish work and be in bed by 11pm. My employers were very particular and demanding. I really gave it my best to be what they wanted me to be, I worked hard, I did not complain but they were never happy.

For the first month I slept on a mattress on the floor of the study. After the first month I was to sleep on the floor in the room of the four month old boy. I needed to wake every four hours to feed him and would attend to him if he woke for any reason. I have never been so tired in my life. To be constantly scolded, always tired, treated like a machine not a human being is mentally draining. I was so depressed.

They would speak Chinese in the home but English to me. The culture was so different to what I was used to. I’m from a small village in the country where everyone knows each other and is friendly. I felt so isolated and lost. Never once did they show me any act of kindness or treat me like a human being yet here I was giving up raising my own son to help raise their children.

I can’t fully explain the depth of the sadness and misery I felt. I would cry myself to sleep it was the only way I had to release the hurt I felt. A life totally disconnected from my culture, my friends, my family and basic human contact. To be treated as an object not a person to be looked down upon for months on end is psychologically draining and damaging. Why me? Why did they dislike me so much? What had a done to deserve this? I was trying so hard. This was my life day in day out without respite. Days turned into weeks turned into months.

After several months of such treatment I began to cry less. Not because their attitudes changed but I just became used to it. At this point I took courage and contacted my agent, the only contact number I had to seek alternative employment. The agent told me no. What if they don’t let you transfer and send you back to the Philippines? You still have debt... If they do let you transfer what if your next employer is the same or worse? Think of the extra debt if you transfer. I was trapped. The agent didn’t want to help me, he didn’t care.

My employers would give me an allowance and deposit the rest of my money in my (joint) bank account. They said they wouldn’t give me access to my own money as they were doing it for my own good, so that I would have savings. I would need to buy my own personal items out of my allowance. As with most employers they kept my passport and Work Permit so that I could not leave.

Now though it was a fresh start, a chance at a new beginning. I’m happy to tell you that now I have a new job with an understanding, generous, thoughtful employer that respects me. I would like to tell you that I came upon this employer immediately after my first ordeal but sadly this is not the case. First I had to deal with the sexual deviance of my next employer...

The work load was much less, they were less demanding and left me to my own devices with regard to cleaning, provisioning and cooking. I was allowed out of the house on my own to shop. The wife worked full time and when at home would spend most of the time on her computer dealing with work related matters. The husband was unemployed and spent his time at home. The two children went to school.

My first day off with this family was the first time I had ever had a day off in Singapore. It had been 15 months. It was great but I actually became quite lost on my way back home not being familiar with the buses or MRT and in the end had to take a taxi home to meet my curfew as I had no idea where I was.

My worst nightmare started one week day. He was home, as usual, his wife was at work and his kids at school. He was inside the bathroom in the bedroom of the room he shared with his wife and was calling for me to hand him his phone. Obediently I took him in his phone and to my surprise saw him naked in the room. It was so unexpected I was completely shocked, the surprise was like a physical blow, I was speechless and could not move. It took me a moment to recover and then I ran out of the room, out of the house to the condo playground. I was crying and shaking, thankfully no one was at the playground at that time.

After I had calmed down I returned back home. I found him just sitting in the living room, I just ignored him and carried on with my work pretending nothing had happened. After an hour or so he came to me and apologised for what he did, he said he didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to talk to him, I just said ok even though deep inside I’m not. I tried to forget about the incident by making myself busy all the time and for a short while work was back to normal again. But after 2 weeks he started to be naked in the house again. This time it was much worse. He would follow me around while I was working. He told me if I told anyone he would send me back to the Philippines. After time when we were alone in the house he would sit and masturbate or follow me around masturbating. I was afraid and confused. I just tried to ignore him. It got to a point where I became immune to him. To me he did not exist in the house any more. I would feel disgust whenever I saw him and began to feel completely numb inside. I became paranoid and began to become afraid of all men. When I wasn’t working I locked myself in my room.

I told my agent I wanted to transfer and eventually told them what was going on. They told me it was ok as long as he didn’t touch me. They told me to try to forget about it and just carry on with my work. I later learnt that this had happened to the maid previous to me. I wondered if the agent already knew about this which is why they never let me interview for other employers.

I learnt to blank the male boss to put it out of my mind. It was the only way I could deal with it. I just focused on my work, my salary, supporting my son. I was afraid of being sent back to the Philippines and the idea of starting all over again with another 7 months working to pay off debt. I guess it was just a coping mechanism that it became part of my daily routine to have a 50 year old man naked, masturbating in the house. Even though I am now out of that situation and in a normal environment I still have anxiety dreams where I see him doing those disgusting things. It took me a while but slowly I regained my trust and confidence around men even though I now see them in a new light. I’m lucky now with a good employer but the thought of others, right now trapped in similar situations sickens me. I hate the system for making this so, the government bond, the uncaring agents, employers power to repatriate and the lack of rights that maids suffer.

Thankfully for me the recession came along and my female boss encountered job and financial problems. I was close to the children so it was sad to say goodbye to them but nevertheless I was happy to go. Unfortunately I needed to pay again for my own transfer fees. This time I used a different agent. I had heard from other helpers that expat employers are more understanding, more generous in giving freedom and higher salary.

Within three days I found a western employer with my new agency. Work was still hard - 6am to 9pm or later with only one day off a month, but work and living conditions were much better. Sadly though this new employer was to leave the country before my two years was up. Because I had never completed a contract, not because of my fault, and even though I had been in Singapore for four years at this point I had never had the chance to go back to the Philippines on home leave. It had been four years since I had seen my son who was only one year old when I left. Thankfully my employer understood the situation and organised a two week trip home for me. I had already secured a new expat employer for my return and so I got to see my son again. He had been in my thoughts so often and helped me through the hardest times in Singapore. He had grown from a baby into a boy and I’m so proud that throughout everything I had provided for him, provided for my family. He is my greatest achievement. The thought of my family and how much they desperately relied on my salary gave me the strength to keep going, gave me a purpose and sense of achievement despite everything.

After four years things have completely turned around for me. I am now very happy with my new employers. I have one day off a week for the first time in four years since I arrived in Singapore. They treat me as an equal and with kindness and respect. I have since learnt about my rights as a maid and as a human being. I know firsthand about some of the abuses that happen so often here in Singapore behind closed doors and want to make a difference. I want to tell my story and the stories of those like me.

I am just one out of 180,000 with a story to tell...