Malaysia to hire maids from south Asia
KUALA LUMPUR: Agencies that supply foreign maids in Malaysia on Wednesday welcomed a government plan to allow recruitment from India, Nepal, Laos and Vietnam to fill a shortage caused by low wages and reports of abuse. "We were waiting" for this decision, said Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, president of the Malaysian Association of Foreign Housemaids Agencies . "Of course we support this." He said Malaysia would need to hire at least 1,000 maids every month to alleviate the shortage. "We have a problem now, 94.8 per cent of the maids are from Indonesia. We cannot depend so much on one source," he said. He said fewer Indonesian maids are applying to work in Malaysia because salaries here are lower than in other countries, and also because many are scared away by media reports that maids are physically abused by Malaysian employers. Reports have highlighted several abuse cases in past months. In the most publicized case, a maid escaped her