SINGAPORE: Imagine if you’re made to sleep at 1 a.m. and then forced to wake up at 5 a.m., and just with that four hours of inadequate rest, you are to start washing the car before being fed only with bones from your employer’s chicken drumsticks.
This isn’t some plot twist from a dystopian drama — it’s an actual lived reality of one foreign domestic worker in Singapore, as revealed in an Asian Boss street interview.
The maid, visibly weary yet composed, recounted her ordeal: “My employer… she treats me like I’m a robot. Every time we go to the wet market, she buys the chicken drumsticks, takes out the bone, and then brings it back to the house. So that’s my food. She tells me, ‘It’s up to you what you want to do with it.’ For that one, I get so stressed out. It’s not a nice thing [to do to someone].”
But it wasn’t just the questionable menu. The maid elaborated that her rest was also a luxury. “My rest also is not enough because I go to bed to rest at 1:00 a.m. and am made to wake up at 5:00 a.m. Then every day I have to wash the car.”
While the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) requires employers to provide domestic helpers with adequate food, rest days, and humane working conditions, such stories highlight how such regulations don’t always translate to reality behind closed doors.
The video sparked outrage online. One Singaporean commenter on YouTube admitted: “I am ashamed of those disrespectful employers. Sincerely apologise to these helpers.”
Another commenter crunched the numbers: “So they’re working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for only $550 a month?! That’s only $1.70 USD/hour!” despite being treated inhumanely.
Others called for change, urging viewers to respect helpers as fellow human beings, not machines.
Singapore currently employs around 301,600 migrant domestic workers, mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar. Many leave their own families behind, drawn by the promise of better pay, only to encounter exploitative employers who blur the line between “help” and “servitude.”
While most employers treat their helpers with dignity, Asian Boss’s interview shines a light on a darker reality that’s too often ignored: That abuse doesn’t always leave bruises. Sometimes, it’s in the form of sleep deprivation, demeaning treatment, or a plate of chicken bones.
We echo the voice for these helpless helpers, along with one commenter who wrote: “Most helpers are just trying their best to make a living. At the very least, people should respect them.”
Watch the Asian Boss video below to hear this helper share her story in her own words:
In other news, another maid was abruptly fired — not for making a mistake, but for doing her job too well. Her only “crime” was feeding, bathing, soothing, and playing with her employer’s baby so much that the child grew closer to her than to its own mother.
You can read about her full case over here: Maid says, ‘I got fired because my employer got jealous that her baby grew closer to me than her’
