My 25-year-old Myanmar maid is actually a teenager, discovers this Singaporean employer

When Genevieve Wijaya first met her newly-hired maid from Myanmar in January this year, her first thought was that she looked much younger than the 25 years she had claimed to be.

As it turns out, her hunch was right.

This maid was only 19 and still a teenager, having shaved a full six years off her real age.

To work as a Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) in Singapore, one needs to be at least 23 years old.

Singaporean Wijaya, 35, who posted about her experience on her Instagram story last month, told AsiaOne: "I first suspected when she first came to the house (because of how she looked)." 

"I did ask her then, are you really 25 years old? And she said yes, and she told me she was born in 1997."

Still suspicious, Wijaya proceeded to grill her on details of her biodata, armed with her documents in hand.

However, she was "well prepared" and managed to answer the questions convincingly.

She behaved like a child

But as the weeks passed, Wijaya said her now former maid began "exhibiting evidence that she is not 25", such as the immature manner in which she behaved.

"She behaved like a child, like how a polytechnic kid would behave or even younger," said Wijaya, a business owner.

Her work performance was also sub-par and she would be on her mobile phone all day.

Wijaya likened her behaviour to that of an adolescent who is "not able to exercise the kind of self-control that adults would be able to exercise".

Her former maid was also constantly depressed and crying because she said she missed her family so much, said Wijaya. But when asked if she wanted to return home, she refused. 

Sensing that something was amiss, Wijaya kept asking her about her background but "packaged in different ways" to see if she would slip up. And she did, as her answers were inconsistent.

"There was once her sister's age would be altered, or the time (and places) she said she spent working would be altered," said Wijaya.

Other red flags included her opening parcels addressed to Wijaya and wanting a transfer despite having arrived at the household for a few days.

Wijaya and her husband then decided to transfer her out for a replacement.

On the day that her former maid was due to leave her home, Wijaya tricked her by claiming that if she does not come clean about her age, the authorities would "pick you up from our door".

Agent became defensive

That was when her former maid revealed that she was born in 2002, making her 19 years of age and turning 20 this year.

She claimed her agent in Myanmar had printed out the documents for her.

Wijaya added that she found her notebooks which contained texts written in English on what she's supposed to say and how old she is, as well as mathematical sums on the pages to calculate her falsified age.

"It's very scary… that they dare to add six years to their age. I think more people need to know this so they won't go through what I did," said Wijaya.

She said she contacted the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) immediately.

And when she confronted her agent, Wijaya said he became defensive, insisting that she had cleared all regulatory checks. 

Wijaya's former maid left her home on April 13, and she has since gotten a replacement maid from the same agency.

She declined to name that employment agency when AsiaOne requested to speak with them.

In hindsight, Wijaya said it makes sense now why her former maid behaved the way she did, "because she's a child that still needs her family with her".

"Her age is definitely part of why all these issues surfaced and we had to deal with them," said Wijaya. "I don't blame this child, I think she really wants to support her family. But it's unfair for us as employers when we don't know who we're dealing with." 

She shared that this was the second case of an underaged maid that she had unwittingly employed — the first was uncovered only after the maid was sent back for stealing and a police report was made.

Agencies required to do checks on FDWs

In a written parliamentary reply by then-Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo in 2018, she said that about 130 FDWs every year were found to be underaged in the past five years.

Employment agencies here are required to do "upstream checks" on these workers before they are deployed to Singapore and action will be taken against agencies that fail to do so, she added. 

FDWs found to be underaged are given the chance to declare their underaged status to be assured of a passage home and they will be allowed back to Singapore to work after they turn 23, said Teo.

Those who flout the minimum age requirement will be permanently banned from working in Singapore.

In 2018, two employment agencies were charged for bringing in maids as young as 13 years old in the first such cases here. Both proprietors were fined $5,000 for the offences and had their licences suspended.

candicecai@asiaone.com