The inadequacies of legal protection for employers in cases of runaway maids / Nura Masyita Ishak

The main objective of this research paper is to examine the ambiguities in the terms and conditions of the contract for the application of foreign maids in Malaysia. The research paper is focusing on the issue where the employer's legal protections being inadequate and how their legal rights are neglected when it comes to the issue of runaway maids. From the findings of the semi-constructed interviews done with the employers whose maids had run-away for several times, official from the Consumer Claims Tribunal and a representative from the National Consumer Complaints Centre (NCCC), it is proven that there is a lack of proper protection on the part of employers, regarding the unfair terms and conditions given by the maids recruitment agencies as length of warranty period for the replacement of new maids in cases of unsatisfactory or runaway to the problems of no appropriate institutions for the employers to come forward and made their complaints and a specific law to govern this issue. Moreover, from the library based research done, it could be seen that all parties involved seems to be pointing fingers to each other when the media highlight this issue.Therefore, several recommendations were given by the parties during the interview as recourse to this problem for example by lengthening the warranty period in the agreement and to train locals as a home manager instead of hiring the foreign maids to avoid the increase of such problem in the future.