Speaking to theSun yesterday about this predicament, the president of the Malaysian Maid Employers Association (Mama), Engku Fauzi Engku Muhsein said that while there was talk of bringing in domestic help from Cambodia, no agreement to that effect had been signed yet.

In the meantime, the cost to bring in Indonesian maids continued to rise.

“While the cost continues to increase due to the rising demand, there is also no guarantee on the current batch of Indonesian maids working in the country.

“For example, there have been numerous cases of such maids running off, thus costing employers huge losses,” he said.

He said agents bringing Indonesian maids into the country charged RM16,000 these days compared to RM14,000 in February. “It would not be surprising if it shoots up to RM20,000 by year end … such is the demand,” Engku Fauzi told theSun.

He said the authorities had to get cracking on finding a solution by either seeking other source countries for domestic help, or reducing the people’s dependency on foreign maids by training locals to undertake such duties.

“The authorities should be more sensitive towards the needs of the rakyat.

“This is because the domestic help sector is at a critical stage whereby middle income groups are unable to afford maids and that demand is way above supply,” he said, adding that Mama was willing to assist the authorities once a viable solution was arrived at.

A moratorium by the Indonesian government on sending new maids to Malaysia was put in place in 2009 following a high number of reports of abuse of their maids. However the ban was lifted in 2013 only to have Indonesian president Joko Widodo announce in Feb 14 last year, that his government would halt the sending of domestic workers overseas by 2017.