by MELISSA DALTON-BRADFORD
She’s Indonesian, in her thirties, and works in Singapore to sustain her family back at home – her children from a failed marriage, her mother, and her siblings. To keep a thatched roof over everyone’s heads, she works seven-day weeks of 16-hour days, sending most of her monthly 500 SGD (394 USD) back home.
Singapore’s title for those like her is FDW or “Foreign Domestic Worker.” But in her opinion, she is “just a maid.” Statistically speaking, she stands little chance of ever being anything but. Why? Because “maid” is more than a work title. It is a way of life, and a notoriously limiting one at that – where subservience, malaise, and a good dose of fear feed on each other. Let me illustrate something of what life is like for this FDW and for tens of thousands like her. Mostly, I am here to tell her story. Heaven knows she never will.
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