KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 6 ― The Malaysian ambassador to Indonesia has slammed an advertisement telling robotic vacuum buyers to “fire your Indonesian maid”, but stopped short of saying that it would affect bilateral ties between the two countries.
Datuk Seri Zahrain Mohamed Hashim stressed that the advertisement, although in “bad taste”, would not sour bilateral ties between the two Southeast Asian countries, amid Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s three-day official visit here.
“We need and appreciate Indonesian domestic helpers, so there is no reason why Malaysians would look down upon or belittle them,” Zahrain told English daily The Star.
“I believe that this is the view of nearly everyone in Malaysia and we consider this advertisement as being in very bad taste.”
On Wednesday, the Indonesian government said it delivered a protest note to the Malaysian Foreign Ministry to demand a ban on the advertisement by RoboVac Malaysia in both its physical and online forms.
An Indonesian organisation called Migrant Care also urged Joko to protest against the advertisement, which the country’s media has labelled as “racist” and “hurtful”.
Corvan Technologies that distributes the robotic vacuum cleaner here yesterday denied that it was behind the advertisement, instead blaming an unauthorised dealer.
Indonesian maids had formed nearly 90 per cent of the Malaysia’s domestic helpers before the 2009 moratorium here, but remain the most popular supplier of such workers to Malaysia due to similar language and other cultural habits.
