This Singapore mall has real live maids for sale
An Indonesian maid performs infant care on a baby doll.
When you are in the market to buy a car, you want options. You want details. It's a big decision, and a lot of money. You're going to have to live with it for a long time.
Same logic applies to buying a maid, no? It does in Singapore.
According to a disturbing Al Jazeera report, Bukit Timah Shopping Center in Singapore has five levels of galleries selling real live maids.
They are from places like Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar. And if you act now, you can get one at a "special discount."
Inside the galleries, maids sit quietly. Some nod. At displays elsewhere in Singapore, they act out tasks, like wheeling wheelchairs or pretending to change a baby doll's diaper.
Some places reportedly market stereotypes as well. Filipinos are "smarter," while Indonesians are "less bright." And Burmese maids, why they are "sweet-natured and compliant," of course.
These scenes are upsetting, though reports of maids being treated like slaves in Southeast Asia are nothing new.
The Philippines is apparently looking into the issue.
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