Maid flees after nine years of unpaid service and abuse

PETALING JAYA: After nine years of slogging for her employer and not seeing a sen in pay, a 27-year-old Cambodian maid decided she had enough of the abuse.
On Friday, with just the clothes on her back and few more, she escaped from her 47-year-old employer's home at an undisclosed residential area here before lodging a police report.
Apart from not being paid, she was also beaten with a clothes hanger and slapped by her employer when he deemed she was too slow at carrying out her tasks.
Petaling Jaya police chief ACP Mohd Zani Che Din said soon after the report was lodged police arrested the victim's employer Friday and remanded him for three days for further investigations.
He said the woman fled the house without her passport as it was kept by her employer.
It is learnt that at the age of 19, the woman went to work for the unemployed man in 2008 for a wage of RM500 a month and was given a RM100 raise the following year.
She was ordered to work for 18 hours a day starting at 5.30am daily and was not allowed to leave the house without her employer and was never given a rest day nor was she paid her salary.
Last year when her father fell ill and she requested to return to Cambodia to visit him, the suspect turned her down.
After years of asking for her pay, only several months ago did her employer post RM10,000 to the victim's sister in Cambodia.
Police learnt that the suspect had given excuses that the authorities here will confiscate any amount above the sum if he sent all the dues owed to her.
Mohd Zani said the case is being investigated under laws of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom) 2007.