The house is completely empty from 8am to 3pm on a usual weekday, and household duties are piling up. Who is there to take care of all of that?
I'm sure you all know about the term ‘kakak’, which is usually a way to refer to someone who helps clean up the house, does routine check-ins, and manages the overall tidiness of the area. Many might consider the word ‘kakak’ to be a norm when addressing domestic workers, and while I can't say I fully disagree, I do believe that the term, when used wrongly, does sometimes reduce a person's worth to a cleaner. Without a ‘kakak’, the lives of many families with two working parents will become disrupted, possibly leading to suboptimal living conditions and possibly even leading to a forced resignation due to too much work.
These ‘kakak’ are oftentimes people coming from countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Cambodia. They are hired mainly due to language considerations and skillset and they are coming here due to the pay gap between working in their home country and working as a domestic worker in Malaysia. This is why many take huge leaps of faith and travel across oceans just to get a livable wage, and most of the time, it's not even fully for themselves. They are earning as much as they can overseas so they can send that little envelope containing their blood, sweat, and tears back home, where the money will be used to help with their parents' medical bills, their siblings' tuition, or even just letting their family have some breathing room in terms of money.
But it isn't as simple as it may seem for them. If any of you have ever been away from home to study, gone on a trip alone, or even just stayed for two days in another city, I know how it feels to miss your family, especially if you're very far away from them. However, for the life of a domestic worker, it isn't just whether they want to do it or not; it's about sacrificing themselves so that others under their care can prosper. This can be challenging for some, especially with problems such as domestic abuse, poorly maintained living conditions, and even violations of basic human rights.
Many households treat their ‘kakak’ as a robot or machine that has no emotions. Many talk to them in harsh tones and make them do extra work that is outside of their job scope. But do we ever stop and consider that the ‘kakak’ in our home is still someone's daughter, who once had a dream herself? It is only due to some specific conditions that caused her to flee from that dream and work day and night just to help out her own family. Outside of her job hours, she dreams of listening to music, going around the world and sightseeing, and reconciling with her family.
In 2018, the late Adeline Sau, a domestic worker from Indonesia, was poorly treated by her employer, forcing Adeline to live outside the house with the family dog, sometimes not feeding her and denying her proper medical treatment for her wounds. This led to organ failure and, unfortunately, her death. She was only 21 years old.
Since then, there have been many groups advocating for the rights of domestic workers, such as The Association of Nationalist Overseas Filipino Workers in Malaysia (AMMPO) and Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers Association (PERTIMIG). In 2022, under their continuous fight for domestic workers' rights, they successfully pressured the Malaysian government to amend the 1955 Employment Act, legally classifying domestic workers as “domestic employees” instead of “domestic servants”, which helped restore basic respect amongst the job class.
These housemaids are the ones who survived through hardship, battles, and even discrimination. They are the ones who went alone to another country, to earn money, to find food, and to give back. If anything, they should be referred to as more than just a ‘kakak’. Contemporary measures of success oftentimes mean earning a large sum of money, but I believe that the success of domestic workers is something that is immeasurable.
So, next time you see a ‘kakak’, please do say hi to them, give them a warm smile, and ask them about their day. Treat them like how you would any other person. What difference in class does being a ‘kakak’ bring anyway? They are still just as capable as you are, and just as human as you are. After all, they are just another human being trying to survive their life, thousands of miles away from home.
Jaden W (wmjaden3@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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