Ammas

Most families here in Singapore have live-in domestic helpers known as Ammas. The Ammas tend to be from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. We are fortunate to have a wonderful Amma named Alona. She is from the Philippines and is a wonderful cook and person. Our apartment has a bedroom for her and she has her own entrance and bathroom. Alona has worked in Singapore for 6 years. She has good english (although sometimes it is hard to understand) and also knows Korean (she worked for a Korean family). She does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry. Many Ammas take care of children, but, of course, ours are old enough to fend for themselves now.

Alona's situation is better than many. Some of the apartments we looked at had terrible rooms (closets) for the Ammas. It is also our understanding the many of the Ammas are mistreated - working 7 days a week and maybe getting one day off a month. When you register to be an employer of an Amma, you must take a test and learn about the regulations. However, some people ignore the issues. Witness this picture we took from our apartment of the building next door. This helper is washing windows from the ledge of the building about 20 floors up! We were horrified and could not believe what we saw.