The Ballad of the Domestic Workers
From the Depression Ward of Kramatjati Hospital in Jakarta came stories of sorrow and pain. Hundreds of Indonesian maids working overseas have been victims of violence, physically maimed and sexually abused by their employers and, on their return home, robbed of their hard-earned dollars by heartless people at the airport. Not a few have returned to their villages in coffins. The government has failed to protect its citizens working overseas to generate billions of dollars annually in foreign exchange for this republic, blaming instead the worker-importing countries for the state of affairs. Meanwhile, unscrupulous labor suppliers and corrupt bureaucrats continue to prey on the helpless maids. Here are the stories of these poor women.
January 6, 2004
IT'S called the Depression Ward. Unlike any other divisions in the Sukanto Hospital in Kramatjati, East Jakarta, the medium-sized room is fortified by iron trellises and bars like a prison cell. Behind the bars at the hospital's Integrated Service Center is confined a domestic worker named Lina who has just returned from Middle Eastern employment suffering from serious mental depression.
Lina, a woman with a clear complexion, has been confined
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