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Malaysian mother jailed over Indonesian maid abuse
Posted: 21 May 2010 1720 hrs
Indonesian domestic worker Siti Hajar shows the scars of her abuse
KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian woman has been sentenced to eight years in jail for causing horrific wounds to her Indonesian maid with a hammer, scissors and scalding water, her lawyer said on Friday. Mother-of-two Hau Yuan Tyng, 44, was convicted on three counts of abusing Siti Hajar, who escaped from her employer's upmarket condo last year and pictures of severe injuries all over her body were splashed across newspapers.
The case was among a string of shocking mistreatment of domestic workers that has strained ties between Malaysia and Indonesia, prompting Jakarta to temporarily ban maids from working in Malaysia since June last year. "My client is not happy with the verdict and we have filed an appeal to the High Court," Hau's lawyer M. Manoharan told AFP, saying his client was also ordered to pay compensation of 5,000 ringgit to Siti.
Sessions Court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah in sentencing Hau on Thursday said the woman did not show any compassion to the maid who suffered prolonged abuse over two years. "She did not use her bare hands to hurt the victim but hot water, a hammer and garden scissors," Komathy said, according to the New Straits Times newspaper.
"A maid's social status does not make her less of a human being," she added.
Siti, 34, from West Java, who came to work in Malaysia in 2006 after her divorce, escaped from her employer's condo and hid in a nearby drain until sunrise when she persuaded a taxi driver to take her to the Indonesian embassy. "I dare not run away, despite the abuses, because she repeatedly threatened me with death," she told AFP in an interview last year.
Malaysia -- one of Asia's largest importers of labour -- depends heavily on domestic workers, who come mainly from Indonesia, but has no laws governing their working conditions. Malaysian officials said last year that an average of 50 maid abuse cases were reported annually, with 300,000 Indonesian maids working in the country. But Indonesia says 1,000 maids experience violence and mistreatment annually.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday signed an agreement that give maids one day off a week and ensures they can keep their passports while in service. However they failed to agree on the issue of a minimum wage for the maids. - AFP/fa
