III. The Abuse and Exploitation of Child Domestic Workers–A Continuing Situation

In 2008, Human Rights Watch returned to Indonesia to assess developments in the treatment of child domestic workers since our original research on the topic in 2004. Worryingly, we found that child domestic workers continue to endure the same wide variety of abuses that we had identified then.

Although our 2005 report, Always on Call, documents these abuses comprehensively, testimonies from the girls we spoke with in 2008 indicate how abuses continue. This chapter provides a brief overview of the range of abuse and exploitation that child domestic workers continue to face in Indonesia. Other examples are cited in the chapters that follow.

During our most recent visit, Human Rights Watch again found that domestic workers often begin work below the age of 15, which is the legal age of employment. For example, we met girls like Ayu, whose testimony opened this report. Ayu was 13 years old when we spoke with her, but she was only 11 when she started working full time as a domestic worker.[3] Another girl we spoke with, Wulan, told us how her employer was aware that she was only 13 when hired.[4]

One labor recruiter-who claimed to recruit approximately 400 girls each year in exchange for earning 300,000 rupiah (US$30) per girl-started by insisting to us that she only ever recruits girls who are over 15 years old, "because there is a fine for anyone that finds work for children under 15."[5] Later, she confessed, however, that she will "help" girls who are under-15 who approach her if she knows the potential employer well.[6]

Girls continue to work extremely long days-typically 14 to 16 hours a day, but sometimes more-including early morning and late into the night.  Sixteen-year-old Kemala told us, "I work from 4 a.m. until midnight. I am not allowed to rest."[7]

Most child domestic workers still never get a day off work. "A day off?" asked Dewi when sharing her experiences with her first employer, when she was 15 years old. "There's no such thing! Of course I have to do everything. It doesn't matter. The employer does not care no matter how tired I am. My employer is going to make me do everything."[8]

Despite these long hours, girls continue to earn wages well below the local minimum wage requirements for "formal" work in the same areas. Even without considering the discrimination in pay between child domestic workers and workers in the formal sector who benefit from minimum wage requirements, the exploitative nature of the low salaries paid to child domestic workers is obvious. Consider Dian, who explained the daily responsibilities she had during her first job at age 15:

I woke up at 4 a.m.… I would then clean, warm leftovers, make the [11-year-old] child's lunch, clean the car, and prepare lunch for my employer for work…. I had to wash the dishes. I cleaned the bathrooms. I spent a lot of time with the old lady. She has to get the sun, I had to prepare her food, and I had to bathe her and look after her…. I was allowed to nap from 1-2 in the afternoon…. The earliest [I would get to bed] was 10 p.m. In the evenings, I would clean the old lady's room. I have to help this old lady go to the toilet. Everything. The old lady is sick. She is diabetic, she has a heart condition, and she broke her leg. She needs a cane…. I never got a day off.[9]

One labor agency we spoke with in Jakarta informed us that their standard rate for a care-giver to the elderly was 1.2 million rupiah ($120) per month, another quoted us 1.3 million rupiah ($130).[10] Dian received just 300,000 rupiah ($30) per month.[11] Working a 17-hour day, seven days per week, this is equivalent to a wage of less than 6 cents an hour.

Physical and psychological abuse of child domestic workers remains a serious problem. Wani told us about the job she had from age 13 to 17:

If I made a mistake [my employers] would shout. They called me names very often, like 'stupid,' 'devil,' 'dumb,' and all other curse words. [My female employer] often hit me, sometimes she'd pinch me. Sometimes she would throw [little plastic] water pails at me. Sometimes she would push me to the wall. Slap me. Pinch me. Sometimes she would slap me twice a day…. Sometimes [I had bruises].[12]

Girl domestic workers also continue to be vulnerable to sexual abuse including rape by male employers or their male family members. For example, seventeen-year-old Kartika told us how she was raped by her male employer,[13] and Guritno told us about the employer she had when she was 15 years old:

I felt uncomfortable when [my employer's husband] would be naked outside his bedroom. So I started getting really scared whenever the children would go to school and the employer would leave, and I would be left alone with him…. He'd ask me, 'Do you want to see [my penis]?' He would do this every day that we were left alone. I wanted to tell the employer but I was scared we would get in a fight.[14]