treat her like family, my ass!

Communication is a basic need. Look at all the communication apps. Look at you coming on to lowyat.net, opening a thread about your maid, ranting about how difficult your life is, that you are working adults and that you have no time and directing your maid to sleep with your newborn child, coming onto lowyat trying to justify your actions, even though all she did was such a tiny infraction and inconsequential to her work. Now imagine how your maid, coming to a new country and place, away from her family feels, without anyone to speak to

imho in my experience my sister gave her maid a basic smartphone

with the smartphone given to maid my sister can video call the maid any time of the day, ask for updates from maid etc maid have to update status on whatsapp etc

treat it like the phone is for work purpose like how company give a work phone or laptop. can be used for work related and some instances like contact family

filipin? good luck

Teach her to use facebook and ask her family to use facebook to communicate with each other. What? Know how to use phone but not use facebook? What age is this 1990s?