This article was first published on Libertarian Society Singapore; story by Henry
 

OPINION — Recently, Al Jazeera covered the issue of Burmese maids in Singapore being abused by their employers.

Some key points covered in the report:
 

• Since September 2014, Myanmar has banned its citizens from seeking domestic work overseas, due to several reports of abuse. But this hasn’t stopped Burmese women from seeking domestic work in Singapore. They go through agents who bribe government officials into allowing these women to leave Myanmar.
   
• Under Singaporean law, all foreign maids must be above the age of 23. But again, that hasn’t stopped Burmese maids below that age. Their agents got them passports with fake birth dates so they could work in Singapore.

These Burmese and Singaporean laws were intended to prevent the exploitation and abuse of domestic workers. But clearly, the laws aren’t working.

Why aren’t the laws working? And could these well-intentioned laws — put in place to prevent exploitation and abuse — be actually achieving the opposite of their intentions? Could they in fact be contributing to the plight of the abused Burmese maids?

Good intentions, bad results

One thing we need to understand is that well-intentioned laws often have negative unintended consequences. Politicians are often too quick to pass new laws — without understanding (or even considering) these unintended consequences — because politicians are not the ones who suffer these ramifications.

Take, for example, the Myanmar government banning its citizens from seeking domestic work overseas. The intention was to prevent Burmese domestic workers from being abused. The government was trying to help.

But are they really helping? One of the worst ways to “help” someone is to take a list of their options, then ban the option that they actually choose.

Why the laws aren’t “helping”

There’s a reason why Burmese women choose to leave their homes and families behind and go to foreign countries to work as maids. 

That reason is the lack of economic opportunities in their home country. Working as maids in foreign countries pays them significantly more than they can earn in Myanmar. Burmese women hope to use that money to lift their families out of grinding poverty. With that income, they can send their younger family members to school to secure a better future.

And this is why — despite the laws in Myanmar and Singapore — Burmese women below the age of 23 still risk breaking the laws of both countries… and pay agents to smuggle them out of Myanmar… and fake their age on passports to get their Singapore work permits… all just so they can work as maids in Singapore. They do so in search of a better life.

This is not something we can change just by writing words on a piece of official-looking paper (aka “passing laws”). 

How the laws backfire

In fact, in many ways, the laws only make Burmese maids more vulnerable to exploitation.

Take, for example, Myanmar’s ban on citizens seeking domestic work overseas. When there is a demand for something, banning it doesn’t get rid of that demand — it only drives it underground, creating a black market.

Because of this ban, Burmese women seeking domestic work overseas can no longer go through legal channels. They are forced to go through shady agents (who have no qualms about bribing government officials to doctor their passports and other documents). 

When Burmese maids are forced to deal with such unscrupulous characters, is it any wonder that they end up getting exploited?

Furthermore, these agents have to recoup their “bribe money” somehow, which means the Burmese maids must now pay a much higher price to get domestic work overseas. So the law only ends up hurting the maids.

It’s no wonder that Burmese maids typically owe their agents the first six to ten months of their salary. This exorbitant price tag is largely due to the amount of government red tape that the Burmese maids are dependent on their agents to navigate.

Likewise, Singapore’s minimum age of 23 for foreign maids also doesn’t help. Twenty-three is just an arbitrary number — it doesn’t magically prevent exploitation and abuse. And as reported by Al Jazeera, this law is utterly ineffective because underaged Burmese maids are still working in Singapore by using doctored documents, and it’s difficult for authorities to detect their real age.

What this arbitrary age restriction does is make it harder for young Burmese maids to escape abuse, because it means that they would be afraid to seek help from the authorities, since they themselves are here illegally, and they’re afraid of getting caught.

Handcuffed by debt

All this comes at a cost — one that is passed down to the Burmese maids, and ultimately leads to them owing the first six to ten months of their salary to the agent.

And this high price tag only makes it more difficult for Burmese maids to escape abuse, as they’ll be reluctant to make reports for fear of being unable to pay back the agents. (As Al Jazeera reported, if they don’t pay this debt, their family will be on the hook, and they can’t afford it.)

This is why Singapore’s minimum age of 23 for foreign maids could inadvertently be making some maids more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. So instead of imposing a rigid age restriction, perhaps there is a better way. 

For example, we could still let them work here legally (thus removing the need for them to hide their real age) — and have counsellors check in on them periodically. This could be a more sensible approach, compared to imposing a rigid age restriction (which forces them to hide their real age, so such problems get hidden instead of revealed).

Unfortunately, it’s easy to pass a bad law, but it’s much harder to repeal it. For example, it’s unlikely that Myanmar’s ban would be repealed anytime soon — because that ban has become such a rich source of bribes for government officials.

The larger lesson here is that we must be wary of using laws as a cudgel to try to solve problems. Laws are rigid and blunt tools — and most of society’s problems today require a far more nuanced approach in order to solve them.