Item Information
- Author, Endang Nurdin and Raja Lumbanrau
- Scroll, BBC News Indonesia, in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
- March 3, 2023
Updated 6 hours ago
Credit, BBC/Dwiki Marta
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In an interview with the BBC, Meriance Kabu tearfully recounts the abuse she suffered as a domestic worker in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
“Help me, I am being tortured by my mistress,” Meriance Kabu wrote on a note. “I’m covered in blood every day, help me!”
She then quickly folded the note and threw it in front of the locked iron gate of the apartment on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, where she lived and worked as a maid.
A woman walking by picked up the piece of paper. After reading it, she immediately took it to a retired police officer who lived in the same complex. “If she had stayed there, she would certainly have died,” he later said.
On the same day, December 20, 2014, Malaysian police knocked on the door of the apartment where Meriance lived. She hadn’t been there for eight months.
“I felt like I was falling,” she says, recalling the moment she saw the police. “They said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re here.’ In that moment I felt strong again. I felt like I could breathe again. The cops pulled me closer and I told them the truth.”
This report contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
Nine years later, Meriance is still fighting for justice. Her case, far from unique, shows how vulnerable undocumented migrant workers are and how often the justice system ignores even those who survive to tell their story.
In 2015, police charged Meriance’s employer, Ong Su Ping Serene, with aggravated assault, attempted murder, human trafficking and immigration violations. She pleaded not guilty to the crimes.
Meriance testified in court before finally returning to the comfort of her home. Two years later, she received word from the Indonesian embassy that prosecutors had dropped the case due to lack of evidence.
Credit, BBC/Dwiki Marta
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Meriance’s husband says he didn’t recognize her when she was rescued
“The Lady of Meriance is free, where is the justice?” asks Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia, Hermono (many Indonesians have a single name), who met Meriance in October.
The embassy has hired legal counsel for her and is lobbying for the case to be reopened.
“What was the delay? Isn’t five years long enough? If we don’t keep pushing, [o caso] be forgotten, especially since Meriance has already returned home.”
It’s unclear why so few cases of abuse are prosecuted in Malaysia, but activists point to a culture that views domestic workers, most of whom are Indonesians, as secondclass citizens who don’t deserve the same level of protection as they do malays .
Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry told the BBC it will “ensure that justice is done in accordance with the law”.
In 2018, an Indonesian court arrested two men accused of trafficking in Meriance. The judge concluded that she was sent to Malaysia “as a maid for Ong Su Ping Serene, who tortured her and seriously injured her,” which landed her in hospital.
Meriance’s ordeal was described in chilling detail in the verdict, according to which her mistress beat her relentlessly, often torturing her with a hot iron, tongs, hammer, stick and tongs. Once he even broke his nose.
Eight years later, his body still bears the marks of that torture. He has a deep scar on his upper lip, he is missing four teeth and one of his ears is deformed.
Meriance’s husband Karvius says he didn’t recognize her after she was rescued: “I was so shocked when they showed me pictures of Meri in the hospital.”
Last year, Malaysia and Indonesia signed an agreement to improve conditions for Indonesian domestic workers in the country. Indonesia is now lobbying for the case against Meriance’s employer to be reopened.
Undocumented workers like her are particularly at risk because their passports are confiscated and they live abroad with their employer. As a result, they have few opportunities to seek help.
“Everyone needs to take more responsibility,” says Malaysian MP Hannah Yeoh, who wants to end what she calls a “culture of silence” in the country over abuse of domestic workers.
Malaysia’s Labor Ministry says there are more than 63,000 Indonesian domestic workers in the country, but that number doesn’t include those in an irregular situation. There are no official estimates of the total number of undocumented workers. The Indonesian embassy says it has received reports of nearly 500 cases of abuse over the past five years.
That number is just the “tip of the iceberg,” says Ambassador Hermono, because many cases, especially those involving undocumented workers, are still unreported.
“I don’t know when this will end. What we do know is that there are increasing victims of torture, nonpayment of wages and other crimes.”
The embassy cannot say how many cases of abuse have been prosecuted. But there were some judgments of great importance. In 2008, a Malaysian woman was sentenced to 18 years in prison for torturing her Indonesian maid. Six years later, a couple was sentenced to death for murdering their Indonesian maid.
“I will fight until I die”
“I will fight for justice until I die,” says Meriance. “I just want to be able to ask my former boss, ‘Why did you torture me?'”
Credit, BBC/Dwiki Marta
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Meriance with her husband and three children
Meriance was 32 when she decided to look for work abroad so “kids wouldn’t cry over food anymore”.
Life was hard in her village in West Timor, where there was neither electricity nor clean running water. And her husband’s salary as a laborer was not enough to feed their family of six.
She accepted the job offer in Malaysia and dreamed of building a house for her family.
When Meriance arrived in Kuala Lumpur in April 2014, the recruiter took her passport and presented it to her employer. Recruiters in Indonesia had already confiscated her cell phone.
But she had hope for a better life. Her job was to look after “Grandma”, the mother of her then 93yearold boss Serene.
Three weeks after starting work, she says, the beatings began.
One evening, Serene wanted to cook fish but couldn’t find it in the fridge because Meriance accidentally put it in the freezer. Suddenly she says she was hit by the frozen fish. His head started bleeding.
After that she was beaten every day, she says.
Meriance says she was never allowed to leave the apartment. The iron gate of the property was always locked and she had no key. Four of the neighbors who lived on the same block were unaware of its existence until the police arrived.
“I didn’t see her until the night she was rescued,” said one.
Meriance says the torture and beatings only stopped when her mistress got tired. Then she would order Meriance to clean up her own blood that had splattered the floor and walls.
She says there were times when she considered suicide, but the thought of her four children pushed her forward.
Credit, BBC/Dwiki Marta
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Meriance says the thought of her four children kept her going
“I’ve also thought about fighting back,” she said. “But if I had fought, I would have died.”
Then one day in late 2014 she looked in the mirror and felt something change: “I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t angry at my boss. But on myself. I had to dare to get out of this situation.”
Then she wrote the letter that would set her free.
The BBC made several attempts to contact her employer, Ong Su Ping Serene, to respond to the allegations, but she declined an interview.
Meriance says she is fighting for justice not only for herself but also for all other abused domestic workers.
Ambassador Hermono is looking into another case of a domestic worker who he says was tortured and starved “in inhumane conditions”. She weighed only 30 kg when she was rescued. Your boss is on trial.
But there are also some, like 20yearold Adelina Sau, who were not rescued in time. She died after being starved and tortured by her mistress.
The boss was charged with murder, but prosecutors dropped the charges in 2019. An appeal to reopen the case was rejected by the judiciary last year.
Adelina was from the same district as Meriance in West Timor.
Meriance says she met Adelina’s mother in her village and told her, “Even if your daughter is dead, your voice is in me.”