Plight of Muslim amahs in non-Muslim homes
By Rosli Abidin Yahya 

Observers have renewed their calls for Muslim foreign maids to be only allowed to work for Muslim employers as some of them alleged that they were not allowed to perform their religious obligations such as prayers by their bosses. All Muslims must pray five times a day as well as perform other religious duties such as fasting as well as observe Muslim rites such as not consuming non-halal meat.

Furthermore, they said Muslim maids working for non-Muslim families were allegedly asked to undertake tasks against their religion such as cooking pork.

"We can prevent such occurrences by stating that Muslim maids can only be employed by Muslim families," they said.

They added that such measures must be fully considered as part of efforts to address problems in the hiring of foreign domestic helpers.

Bruneians usually employ maids from Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.

They said, "If the Muslim maids willingly want to work for non-Muslims, then they should be required to sign a contract stipulating that domestic helpers will not be asked to handle or cook food forbidden in their religion, and that they must also be allowed to perform their prayers."

"Employment agents here would never assign Muslim maids to work for non-Muslims but there had been a few isolated cases whereby Muslim maids were unintentionally assigned to non-Muslim employers," they said.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin