Being domestic workers, way-out for countryside girls to avoid marriage

Sixteen-year-old girl Atun only bowed down when Siti Fatimah (44) visited her house in the village of Lembupurwa, Mirit District, Kebumen Regency, Central Java. Siti is a broker who mediates future domestic workers and their future employers in Menteng, Central Jakarta and Kepala Gading, North Jakarta.

Siti continued to persuade Atun. But the latter was busy of breaking up the skin of paddy oats, which had been dry-fried with sand.

“So, how? You wanna to be back or not? It’s better than doing this and getting no money,” Siti persuaded her.

Atun was budging. Signs of doubts were seen on her face. Actually, Atun still wanted to go back to work in town, like what some of her peer friends do. But she had been working as domestic worker twice and always quit because she was unhappy.

“I’m ashamed to go back again,” Atun spoke out softly.

Kemirah (38), Atun’s mother, who works as vendor of paddy oats’ raw chips, actually allowed her daughter to be domestic worker. Kemirah said that being a domestic worker in big cities is the best way-out for her daughter to be economically independent.

Another choice if she does not become a domestic worker is getting married and Kemirah does not want Atun to get married too early.

Atun has not also been thinking of getting married although she does not want to continue her study either at Madrasah Tsanawiyah Ghozali, a junior high school-level Islamic school in her hometown.

“If she gets married, she will be busy of taking care of her children. Let her be happy first by earning her own money,” Kemirah said.

Atun recalled that she had decided to leave school and chose to work since a year ago. She took the choice because she had seen how her friends went to town one by one and when returning home, their style and appearance were different.

“They enjoyed life. I wanted to have cellular phone, buy cosmetics for make-up and have pretty clothes,” Atun said innocently.

Atun told her story that she once went with Siti to work for an employer in Yogyakarta and Gombong, Kebumen, Central Java. But in less than four days, Atun returned home by a bus alone because she felt a homesick after living far from her parents and siblings.

Women’s Domain

Many teenagers like Atun, and even younger, were sent from poor areas across the archipelago to work in urban domestic sector.

Based on the data of Jala PRT, a non-governmental organization that advocates protection for domestic workers, in 2010, it was estimated that there were about 10 million of domestic workers across Indonesia and 30 percent of them were girls.

Jala PRT Coordinator Lita Anggraini said that most of domestic workers are women because culturally, household works are considered as women’s domain.

“Many still view that taking higher education or working hard will be useless because finally, women will end in the kitchen,” Lita said.

Besides Atun, thousands of other domestic workers started to work as domestic workers even when they still attended their elementary school. Some want to work to meet their lifestyle so they sacrifice education. However, many are also forced to be the backbones of their families due to economic reasons.

According to former sub-district head of the village of Tlogodepok Mirit, Sujatmiko, the majority of people in Kebumen Regency works as farmers. Recently, however, working at the agricultural sector is getting difficult and providing a small amount of income.

Besides the rain-fed type of paddy field, the village irrigation system has not been well managed so the villagers are forced to depend on alternative jobs to earn living.

“The boys sometimes work as manual laborers in palm oil plantations in Kalimantan or sell cows and goats. The girls become domestic workers after graduating from elementary or junior high school,” Sujatmiko said.

Taking a look at economic problems found a lot in villages, many girls think that being domestic workers is one of the fastest way to temporarily earn money in good ways, besides avoiding to get married soon.

This article is the third in-depth article on child domestic workers a series of four in-depth articles by Abraham Utama and Utami Diah Kusumawati of CNN Indonesia and published on 19 September 2015. The article is part of the ILO’s media fellowship programme on domestic workers and child domestic labour, jointly conducted in collaboration with the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Jakarta and eight selected leading, national mass media. The media fellowship programme was part of the campaign conducted by the ILO through its Promoting Decent Work for Domestic Workers to End Child Domestic Work (PROMOTE) Project. Funded by the United States Department of Labour (USDOL), PROMOTE Project aims at reducing child domestic workers significantly by building institutional capacities of partners to promote Decent Work for Domestic Workers (DWDW) effectively. The Project works to increase the knowledge, skills and expertise on reducing child domestic workers and promote DWDW.