Couple will hang for starving maid to death
Print Edition
A Malaysian couple was sentenced to hang for starving their Indonesian maid to death, a defense lawyer said yesterday, in the latest shocking case to spotlight abuse of domestic helpers in the region.
Isti Komariyah weighed just 26 kilograms on her death in Kuala Lumpur in June 2011 from what a court ruled was deliberate starvation, according to Malaysian media reports on the ruling issued on Thursday.
“She was 26 and weighed just 26kg when she was taken to the University Malaya Medical Center with bruises and scratches on her back, arms and forehead,” The Star newspaper said.
Fong Kong Meng, 58, and his wife Teoh Ching Yen, 56, consistently withheld food from Isti over the three years she worked for the couple, the court said.
Isti weighed 46kg when she began working for them.
Defense counsel Ramkarpal Singh said his clients would appeal the decision on Monday.
The case is the latest to underline concern over the vulnerability of Indonesian, Philippine, Cambodian and other domestic workers in Asia and the Middle East.
Rights groups say countless maids work behind closed doors without adequate legal and labor protection.
China’s Hong Kong vowed last week to improve legal oversight of maid employment after gruesome images surfaced of injuries sustained by 22-year-old Erwiana Sulistyaningsih of Indonesia, who was left unable to walk.
Thousands of domestic helpers took to the streets in January demanding justice. Her employer has been arrested and charged with assault.
Malaysia relies on an estimated two million Indonesians to work in plantations, construction, factory and domestic work, both legally and illegally.
A Cambodian maid was starved to death in 2012 by her Malaysian employers, earning them 24 years in jail. Cambodia stopped sending maids a year earlier due to abuse cases.
Since Indonesia imposed a two-year moratorium on sending maids in 2009 due to a string of abuse cases, Malaysia has taken some steps toward improving their welfare, including giving maids at least one day off a week and nearly doubling the minimum monthly wage.
But activists say the new rules are not properly enforced.
“We want to be serious about human rights abuses, but the death penalty is not a proven deterrent. We can’t leave maids in isolation,” Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Malaysian rights group Suaram, said.
Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, head of the Malaysian National Association of Employment Agencies, said he hoped this week’s death sentence “will restore the confidence of source countries that we are serious about tackling maid abuse.”
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