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June 16, 2000 VOL. 29 NO. 23 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK
In a country where the ill-treatment of foreign domestic workers is seldom discussed, a spate of court cases has uncovered some unpleasant truths By SANTHA OORJITHAM Kuala Lumpur ALSO: Branded for a Mistake Even for hardened policemen, the scene at a house in Kuala Lumpur's ritzy Kelana Jaya suburb came as a shock. Summoned by worried neighbors, the officers found Nurjanah Matyak, a 40-year-old Indonesian domestic helper, in an appalling condition. Bruised and cut, with both eyes virtually closed, she said her female employer had viciously beaten her around the head that morning with a rattan cane. Altogether, in two attacks the maid had allegedly been struck up to 10 times, as well as being punched on the lip -- first for not responding quickly enough when called and then for dripping water on the kitchen floor. Later, questioned by police, Nurjanah said that on two other occasions she had been forced to lick urine and eat hair. The employer, businesswoman Yap Sow Li, 50, was held at a police station overnight and then released, charged with causing grievous hurt. This was later reduced to causing hurt -- to which she pleaded not guilty. If convicted, Yap could be jailed for a year or fined. The case, which is still going on, brought Malaysians face to face with a hidden scandal at the heart of this multiracial society: the abuse of overseas domestic helpers. There are some 200,000 in the country -- about 165,000 from Indonesia, with the remainder mainly from the Philippines, plus Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Thailand. At a news conference prior to the trial, Nurjanah said she was in charge of the family's six-year-old boy, with two other maids employed to cook and clean and look after Yap's mother. Nurjanah said she had to follow a precise schedule and telephone her employer in her office to report on all the day's activities. She also had to prepare a written report for Yap when she returned home. If the two accounts did not match, she was allegedly beaten with a cane. For this purpose, one cane was kept upstairs and one downstairs. She said Yap had also struck her with a wooden block, a broomstick, a clothes hanger and a toilet brush. On one occasion the employer forced a cane into the maid's mouth, bruising her gums. Nurjanah said she had been abused almost daily since November 1998. Parallel to the Yap proceedings, another court was hearing the case of Ruminah Atem, a 57-year-old Indonesian who said she had been forced to live in a grilled area in the backyard of her employer's home for 30 months. She said she had been given only one meal a day, usually of stale rice, and was made to use an old ice-cream container as a toilet. Ruminah, from East Java, said she was let out for only one hour a day to mop the floor. She was not paid for seven years and was given no holiday. Asked why she did not flee, she told the court: "Where am I going to find food, where to sleep? I am illiterate." Her employer, Khoo Sin, also known as Khoo Nan Chew, a 52-year-old engineer, and his wife, Yew Yoke Choo, 54, deny wrongly confining her. They face up to two years in jail if convicted. Among other recent cases, a maid from Jakarta was hospitalized after being beaten unconscious by the wife of her employer. Another said her boss had tried to force himself on her sexually. She told a journalist: "He couldn't keep his hands off me. He kept asking me to kiss him and when I refused, he forcefully hugged me. I think the madam knew. Maybe that was why she always scolded me for every little mistake I made." Some victims turn to the Women's Aid Organization (WAO), an organization that runs a shelter and offers advice. Its executive secretary, Ivy Josiah, says the authorities' response to problem cases is improving. Among measures that have been introduced: • Mistreated helpers are routinely taken to hospital for a check-up and treatment. • They are looked after in shelters when possible, rather than held in detention camps. • The Immigration Department has set up a hotline and is considering withholding the passports of mistreated maids, preventing employers from sending them home before their cases can be heard. • Employers found to have mistreated a helper are banned for life from hiring another one. • Police normally use female officers to investigate cases of abuse. High on her list of priorities now, says Josiah, is the introduction of comprehensive protection for helpers, along the lines of guidelines for employers used in Singapore, and incorporating elements of a standard contract drawn up by the Philippines Department of Labor and Employment. At the moment, there is no legislation in Malaysia specifically covering maids' employment. Why do people turn on their domestic helpers? Dr. Lim Chee Min, co-chairman of the Kuala Lumpur Network of Mental Health Professionals and formerly a clinical specialist at University Hospital, says: "For the vast majority of abusers, it has nothing to do with psychosis or mental illness. Some people lack insight into their own actions and don't have a clue how to deal with others." Josiah puts it down to "disrespect, racism and ignorance." She says: "I'm disgusted when people don't regard foreign domestic workers as humans with the same feelings and aspirations as others. Their rights are not recognized. These employers believe they are free to discipline them. It's a sophisticated form of slavery." It's slavery all right. But Nurjanah probably wouldn't call it sophisticated. Branded for a Mistake By IAN HANSEN Hong Kong Three months after she was maimed for life by her Hong Kong employer, Philippine domestic helper Achacoso Warly Cabaneros was still consumed with anger. "I'll never forgive her," she said May 24. "I hate her for what she has done. Every time I look at my hands, I will remember the terrible thing she did to me." Cabaneros, 28, was talking of Liu Man-kuen, a businesswoman who in a moment of pique had pinned her maid's hands to an ironing board and seared them with an iron. Cabaneros's "offense": She had accidentally scorched Liu's camisole. Sentencing the executive to 18 months in jail, magistrate Colin Mackintosh described the attack as "barbaric behavior." He dismissed as "a pack of lies" Liu's defense that her maid had burned herself in order to return to the Philippines. After the hearing, Cabaneros said: "I hope what has happened today will send out a strong message to employers. This should never happen again to anyone in my position." Rex Varona of the Asian Migrant Center accused the Hong Kong authorities of not doing enough to curb racism against the migrant community. "I think the Hong Kong government has to do some human-rights education for employers, sending out messages that racism and physical abuse are not tolerable." The Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers described the sentence as "a bit too harsh." Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com
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