IIn Taiwan, where the demand for foreign caregivers has skyrocketed, hundredsof thousands of Indonesian women have worked as caregivers. Pursuing the dream of having a better life back home, Indonesian female caregivers have found themselves in a particularly vulnerable position owing to severe exploitation and cultural differences. Although they are a large and unique migrant group, their story remains largely untold in Taiwan.
As a society with a low birth rate and an aging population, Taiwan has increased its demand for female caregivers who take care of the elderly. Traditional Confucian principles, which emphasize filial duty, deter Taiwanese from sending their elderly family members to nursing homes. Also, Taiwanese women, who used to serve commonly as caregivers, have joined the workforce in ever-increasing numbers. Therefore, the number of foreign female caregivers in Taiwan has reached an unprecedented level.
In October 2013, approximately 207,000 female caregivers worked in Taiwan; Indonesian accounted for the lion’s share, roughly 80% of all female caregivers. They are stereotyped as “innocent” and “hardworking” yet “inexperienced” and “stupid.”Compared to caregivers from other countries, such as the Philippines and Thailand, Indonesian female caregivers on average have lower educational levels, relative ignorance of labor rights and a lack of a support network, which makes them the most vulnerable when facing pressure from employers and labor brokers in both Taiwan and Indonesia.
Reports show Indonesian female caregivers are often forced to work as maids or work illegally in small business run by their employers,even though caregivers’responsibilities are limited to taking care of the sick or elderly according to the law.Additionally, some of the local labor brokers collude with employers to persuadecaregivers to accept illegal and unfair employments. Finally, economic hardships alsoput pressure on Indonesian caregivers to remain employed, as they will be repatriated if they lose their jobs in Taiwan; most of them still owe loans, which they used to pay the high fee charged by Indonesian labor brokers.
Except for high exposure to exploitation, Indonesian female caregivers’ difficulties include significant culture barriers. Indonesia is 86% Muslim, while mostTaiwanese practice traditional Chinese religion, which integrates elements ofBuddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. When an Indonesian female caregiver shares a home with a Taiwanese family, she may be pressured to give up daily prayers andcook pork, which is forbidden in the Muslim diet but the most popular meat inTaiwan.
Tensions between Taiwanese locals and Indonesian migrant workers—78% ofwhich are female caregivers—erupted in August 2013 when over 30,000 Indonesianworkers packed into the Taipei Railway Station to celebrate the end of Ramadan. They were accused by Taiwanese netizens of obstructing the station.Subsequently, the station administration used red tape to circle the lobby, which was portrayed by migrant workers as “discrimination” and triggered further debates.
Endang, a 29-year-old Indonesian caregiver in Taiwan, wrote a poem called “The Tree of Dream” which won the second prize in the 2010 Taipei Foreign Labor Poetry Competition. She described the “tree of dream” looked beautiful and flourishing from distance, but the road to the tree was long, horrifying and like a zigzag.
“Nonetheless,
I hold hope in my palm and perseverance in my heart,
For the belief of ‘a nice home’, I shall scarify everything.”
Working in a foreign country with a huge cultural gulf, unfamiliar language and possible exploitation, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian female caregivers in Taiwan are still on their way to the tree of dream.