Update: The Ministry of Manpower has replied with the following statement:

“We have received Mr Dzar Ismail’s email and are looking into his complaint. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will take appropriate actions based on the facts and circumstances of this case. Foreign domestic workers (FDWs) are important members of many Singaporean households and in an FDW-employer relationship, neither party should exploit the trust given. FDWs found to be unsuitable for employment, such as those who have contravened the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act or committed criminal offences, will be barred from working in Singapore. If an FDW has behaved irresponsibly, employers can consider providing their contact details through MOM to serve as a reference check for prospective employers intending to employ the same individual. Employers can do so by writing to MOM at [email protected].”

A lot of Singaporeans manage to live their hectic daily lives with the help of a domestic helper in their household.

For most of us, living with helpers who are practically strangers yields few issues of consequence.

But a fraction of us are not as lucky.

On Dec. 26, Dzar Ismail, a deejay for local Malay radio station Ria 89.7FM, shared a Facebook live audio post detailing what he alleges to be a nightmarish experience with his former domestic helper.

Dzar, who has two young children, had engaged the help of an Indonesian helper in 2016 to ease his household responsibilities since both he and his wife work long hours.

He said prior to hiring her, the couple had a Skype interview with her and found her to be a suitable candidate because she sounded nice and seemed keen to work in Singapore after mentioning that she wanted to help her farmer parents.

Living in a Muslim household

Trying his best to be an understanding employer, he says he didn't impose any "draconian" guidelines or curfews on his helper, except to don a hijab and dress decently since she is going to live in a Muslim household.

He allowed her not only the free use of her handphone, but also gave her a tablet to watch videos on YouTube and Netflix, as well as unlimited usage of his home's wifi as long as it didn't interfere with her daily work.

He also said he gave her an air-conditioned room to herself, since his children sleep with him and his wife.

But all the niceties were allegedly in vain.

Suspecting something was off, Dzar said his wife set up a fake Instagram account to follow their helper's account anonymously.

Posing in employers' clothing

The photos on her Instagram account proved their suspicions to be true.

The helper had uploaded photographs of herself wearing Dzar's wife's clothing and posing with her (his wife's) guitar.

It seems she felt his clothes were worth wearing too:

The helper even brazenly uploaded a photo of herself using his wife's MAC lipstick in a musical.ly lip sync video.

Drinking in the house

Contrary to her professional appearance of being fully covered and wearing a hijab, the helper, Dzar also asserted, was revealed to have uploaded photos of herself in sleeveless tops and appeared in them with coloured hair and shaved sides.

Bad as it is, especially viewed with a Muslim lens, all that was less of a problem to Dzar compared with this photo of his helper in her room holding a bottle of breezer (which is an alcoholic drink, by the way):

When Dzar's mother asked her why she was drinking alcohol in the Muslim-owned house she was working in, the helper allegedly responded in Bahasa Indonesia:

"You cannot judge me for the lifestyle that I live."

Suggestive Facebook posts

According to Dzar, his family also found her Facebook account.

He said he was okay with some of the more personal posts she had — including, he claims, rants about Dzar's and his wife's mothers — but one Facebook post truly was the last straw for him:

Dzar said he interpreted the Facebook post written in Bahasa Indonesia to mean, and here we quote from what he said in the broadcast:

"If you have any problem, just come to my house. Everything will be better in 60 minutes."

However, Facebook users then pointed out that the post could actually have been referring to an Indonesian reality show called "Rumah Uya".

"What soliciting... in this post is about the TV program in Indonesia... Rumah Uya... Iya (sic) is the host of the program... Just try to let you know about this one."

"Sorry Dzar Ismail, I may have to disagree with this part. Rumah Uya is an Indonesian reality show from Trans7 channel. You may misunderstood the whole statement."

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Children's well-being

Of course, the main concern for Dzar had to be his young children, since they were under her care while he and his wife were working.

An Instagram post he found from her account shows an image of the road outside on Nov. 2, 2017 at 9.37pm:

According to Dzar, he was in the hospital with his then-pregnant wife, while the helper was supposed to be at home caring for his two-year-old daughter.

To add to his disappointment, Dzar found an Instagram post of his daughter in the nude while the helper was giving her a bath. She even allegedly tagged the family's address on her posts:

Thinking enough was enough, the family decided to confiscate her phone. Dzar said that while going through her Google browser, they found pornographic search terms on her phone.

Then he remembered his mother's and wife's accounts that recently, they had been noticing his daughter spreading her legs while pointing to her private parts whenever she was given a shower.

Listeners' reactions

The Facebook live audio broadcast he put out explaining all these incidents garnered over 1,000 reactions and more than 800 shares.

Many empathised with Dzar and gave him some parting advice:

"Having a maid is like a gamble. Just an employer looking for employees. Yes, treat them well but boundaries have to be set."

"You treated her the correct way, but she abused your trust. Don't be a bad employer because of one bad employee. She was the wrong employee."

Although one Facebook user might perhaps have been missing the point:

"In Islamic (sic) best practice is for the wife to stay home to take care of the household. That should be the focus now for you."

Sending her back

Scarred by the unpleasant revelations, Dzar said has reported the case to Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and even wrote a public Facebook post to have her blacklisted, and have her returned to the agency they hired her from to be sent back to Indonesia.

"Trust is something really tough... (I'm) really taken aback and I hope I'm doing the right thing by reporting to MOM... hopefully she gets blacklisted and none of you have to go through the horrible experience I've had to face."

Speaking to Mothership, an MOM spokesperson replied the following:

"We have received Mr Dzar Ismail’s email and are looking into his complaint. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will take appropriate actions based on the facts and circumstances of this case. Foreign domestic workers (FDWs) are important members of many Singaporean households and in an FDW-employer relationship, neither party should exploit the trust given. FDWs found to be unsuitable for employment, such as those who have contravened the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act or committed criminal offences, will be barred from working in Singapore. If an FDW has behaved irresponsibly, employers can consider providing their contact details through MOM to serve as a reference check for prospective employers intending to employ the same individual. Employers can do so by writing to MOM at [email protected]."

Here's a Facebook post he uploaded, with the evidence he found, on Thursday:

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Top image via Dzar Ismail's Facebook page