What HAVEN is, and who’s eligible
HAVEN — the full name is Household and Assistance Vetting & Employment Network — is one module of GENESIS, Sarawak’s broader integrated system for non-Sarawakian employment, run under a framework combining several agencies rather than by one labour department alone. This is distinct from the existing JTKSWK page most often cited for Sarawak, which covers agency-licensing categories under Act 246 and doesn’t mention HAVEN at all.
On the employer side, eligibility requires being a Malaysian citizen, holding a Sarawak Employment Pass 1 (EP1), or holding S-MM2H visa status, plus meeting a minimum household income — RM60,000 a year for a non-Indonesian helper, or RM36,000 a year specifically for an Indonesian helper. A household earning over RM120,000 a year may apply for a second FDH, with further additions handled case by case. A male applicant must be married and submit a marriage certificate.
The two-stage process, and Sarawak’s own medical system
The employer applies for an Approval Letter through HAVEN first — requiring documents like NRIC or marriage certificate, a utility bill or SSM/e-filing records, three months of payslips or bank statements, and the helper’s own passport, employment contract, and medical report. This letter is valid for six months. Once granted, a Labour Licence is auto-issued and emailed to the employer, valid for one year — a requirement newly introduced by the Sarawak Labour Ordinance (Amendment) Act 2025, effective 1 May 2025.
Medical screening in Sarawak runs through its own system, SAFHIS (Sarawak Foreigners Health Information System), not Peninsular Malaysia’s FOMEMA — within 30 days of arriving in Sarawak, she completes a screening at a SAFHIS panel facility, following an earlier medical check already required in her home country before the eVDR was issued.
A genuine 2025 rest-day right, and what still mirrors Peninsular structure
The same 1 May 2025 amendment that introduced the Labour Licence also extended a weekly rest-day entitlement to domestic workers in Sarawak — a newly confirmed right, implying they weren’t covered before that date. Sarawak’s labour department describes ordinary termination as running on 14 days’ notice, or payment of 14 days’ wages instead — a close structural parallel to Peninsular Act 265.
The same source also states domestic workers in Sarawak aren’t entitled to termination benefits or wages in lieu of notice, exempted under Sarawak’s own First Schedule — language that reads in tension with the wages-instead-of-notice point just above, and wasn’t independently reconciled in the research behind this page. The most likely reading is that the First Schedule exclusion covers a different kind of payment (severance-style termination benefits) rather than cancelling the 14-day mechanism itself, paralleling how Peninsular Act 265 keeps its own s.57 notice rule while separately excluding domestic employees from Part XIIA’s termination-benefit provisions — but confirm the exact mechanics directly with JTKSWK before relying on either statement.