Look what I found in my maid’s.
At first she told that she bought it from a lady whom she don’t even know for self protection. To me it doesn’t make sense.
After further confrontation she admit she brought it from her country.
Big time Girl! š”š”š”
Be more cautious with your maid guys.
And May Allah protect us all.
When asked what was the content in the note, she replied,”As per ustaz, ayat Al-quran asmaul husna but the other seems like a word of charm. Sort of mantra or could be more than just dat.”
Many warned her to be careful and take precautionary measures, one even commented on her post and advised her against reading it and to just burn the note.
Some people opined that it is only naturally that “one wants to be protected by all means in a foreign country all by herself”.
A Juz Faisal shared with her, ” I just asked my colleague whose a fellow Indonesian as I’m sailing onboard a ship currently. To clear any misunderstandings, this is not black magic. Ini mungkin dia dapat dari kiyai-kiyai kampung as we got to understand most of these maids are poor and study in madrasahs back at their villages so before they work overseas, is believed that their teacher would give them ayat2 quran as self-protection if anything harm would come to them as in their culture or custom. Although we don’t deny there are minority who are black magic practitioners yang pakai ayat2 yg bukan arabic tapi bahasa indon jawa lama2 dan barang2 kotor. May Allah protects us from this Fitnah and guides us to the right path.”
Here is a look at past cases of high-profile maid abuse.
Husband and wife jailed over years of maid abuse
Husband Tay Wee Kiat faced 12 charges involving the couple’s two maids, while Chia Yun Ling was convicted of hitting one of them. ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
A 14-day trial revealed the numerous ways that former regional information technology manager Tay Wee Kiat, 39, and his wife Chia Yun Ling, 41, had assaulted their Indonesian maid for almost two years.
Tay was on March 11 sentenced to two years and four months in jail after he was convicted of all 12 charges.
Nine of the charges were for causing hurt to Ms Fitriyah, 34, with the other three Ā for making his maid from Myanmar, Ms Moe Moe Than, slap Ms Fitriyah on the face; offering to pay Ms Fitriyah and send her home in exchange for not reporting his abuse; and instructing Ms Fitriyah to lie to the police that he did not abuse Ms Than.
Chia, meanwhile, got two months’ jail for slapping Ms Fitriyah some time between June and December 2012 and punching her on the forehead on Dec 7 that year.
Over a two-week period, Zinnerah Abdul Majeed also hit domestic helper May Thu Phyo Ā with a bamboo pole, a belt buckle and even a bicycle lock, leaving her with multiple injuries. PHOTO:Ā SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
All she did was break a cup while washing utensils in the kitchen. But that was enough reason for the domestic helper’s employer, Zinnerah Abdul Majeed, to press a heated metal spoon on her arms around the last week of August 2015.
The helper, Ms May Thu Phyo, 23, had been working for the family for only about a month when the abuse started.
That was not the only punishment Ms May had to endure over a two-week period, a district court heard. Zinnerah had hit her with a bamboo pole, a belt buckle and even a bicycle lock, leaving her with multiple injuries.
On Nov 2, 2016, Zinnerah was jailed 20 months after pleading guilty to three counts of maid abuse at her home in Yishun Avenue 4.
Mother-daughter pair jailed for abusing maid, leaving her with permanent disability
Jayasheela Jayaraman (left) and her mother, Anpalaki Muniandy Marimuthu were sentenced 12 months and 16 months’ jail respectively for hurting the former’s maid. ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
Housewife Anpalaki Muniandy Marimuthu, 65, and her daughter, warehouse supervisor Jayasheela Jayaraman, 43, were on Sept 23, 2016, jailed 16 months and 12 months respectively for hurting the latter’s maid.
Ms Sriyatun, 27, was left with a permanent disability in her left ear from the abuse.
Among the instances of abuse she was subjected to included being slapped for not carrying Jayasheela’s shoes into the family’s Bendemeer flat, having her swollen ear pinched before it healed and having her breast squeezed and twisted for being slow in her work.
Anapalaki also hurt Ms Sriyatun with household objects on a few occasions.
Maid ‘hit with hammer’ for not cleaning toilet properly
Ms Khanifah (above) had been working for Zariah Mohd Ali and Mohamad Dahlan for about six months when the alleged abuses took place. She told the court she was hit on the head with a hammer at least five times.ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
Indonesian domestic worker Khanifah, 35, allegedly suffered various abuses at the hands of her female employer, who is accused of using an array of weapons to injure her.
These included Ā a hammer, bamboo pole and pounder that knocked out or broke her teeth, leaving her with head wounds that are still visible, Ms Khanifah told a district court on April 18, 2016.
The employer, Zariah Mohd Ali, 54, is being tried on 12 of 28 maid abuse charges. Zariah’s husband, Mohamad Dahlan, 56, is also accused of hitting Ms Khanifah with the cover of a frying pan.
The alleged offences occurred at the couple’s home in Woodlands Street 31 between June and December 2012, after Ms Khanifah had been working for them for about six months.
Rosman Anwar (left) and his wife Khairani Abdul Rahman had their jail terms increased for the prolonged abuse of their Indonesian maid.Ā ST PHOTOS: WONG KWAI CHOW
A couple who routinely slapped their Indonesian maid and even threatened to send her to work in the sex trade in Batam had their jail terms increased after the prosecution won its appeal on Sept 25, 2015.
Khairani Abdul Rahman, a 42-year-old customer service officer, had her four-week jail term doubled to eight. Her 47-year-old husband, senior logistics officer Rosman Anwar, had his jail term tripled from two weeks to six.
In allowing the prosecution’s appeal, Judicial Commissioner See Kee Oon said the original sentences were manifestly inadequate for the prolonged nature of the abuse and the psychological and emotional toll on the maid.
In an earlier trial, the couple had been found guilty of causing hurt to Ms Solichah, 28. Khairani was convicted of three charges – two for slapping the maid and one for hitting her with a plastic stool. The husband was convicted on two charges – slapping the maid and pulling her hair.
Woman jailed for joining mother in attack on maid; locking her in apartment
Chua committed both offences while under a mandatory treatment order for paranoid schizophrenia. ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
Chua Siew Peng, 44, was on May 5, 2016, sentenced to two months’ jail for assaulting her Filipino domestic helper Jonna Memeje Muegue and keeping her locked in her sister’s Bukit Timah condo on Oct 30, 2012.
Chua’s 75-year-old mother Lum Wai Lui had assaulted Ms Muegue for eating salmon not meant for her. Chua then entered the toilet and joined in by pulling the maid’s hair and slapping her repeatedly.
Ms Muegue escaped escaped the following day by climbing out of the sixth-floor window, scaling the ledge and jumping onto the rooftop of the floor below – breaking her feet in the process.
Ms Muegue testified that Lum abused her between March/April 2012 and October that year by punching, slapping, kicking and hitting her head against a wall and pouring bleach on her hands and arms. She also said she was underfed and lost 10kg.
Lum, a retired radiograph and medicine technician, was given 21 months’ probation after being convicted of maid abuse in 2015.
Tutor Low Gek Hong, 37,Ā repeatedly scratched the Myanmar maid on the face, arms and ears for being inefficient, and used a pair of scissors to poke the victim’s left shoulder in February 2012. PHOTO: ST FILE
Tutor Low Gek Hong, 37, repeatedly abused her mother’s 17-year-old maid over three months from December 2011 to February 2012, three months into the maid’s employment at her mother’s Tampines flat.
She repeatedly scratched the Myanmar maid on the face, arms and ears for being inefficient, and used a pair of scissors to poke the victim’s left shoulder in February 2012 because the maid could not find a pillowcase that Low wanted changed. Low also punished the maid by kicking her, biting her, and hitting her with a metal hanger, including once pouring a mug of hot water onto the victim’s back for falling asleep in the toilet.
Low, whose claim that she was suffering from depression when she abused the maid was rejected, wasĀ sentenced to nine months jail on April 29, 2015, and ordered to pay the maid $5,000 compensation.
3 more months’ jail for ‘relentless tormentor’ of maid
Chan Huey Fern’s case was said to be one of the most distressing maid-abuse cases. PHOTO: ST FILEĀ
Chan Huey Fern, 33, was on Sept 10, 2014, given three additional months’ jail on top of her 21-month jail sentence for hitting the back of her Indonesian maid with a foldable chair.
She had initially been convicted in 2013 of abusing Ms Juwarti, then 22, at her Buangkok flat between June and September 2010.
Chan, who punched Ms Juwarti in the eye and chest, kicked her in the groin until the latter bled and stamped on her body on separate occasions, had her case labelled as “probably one of the most distressing domestic maid-abuse cases in Singapore” by trial judge Low Wee Ping.
Indonesia said Monday (March 20) it would continue to send domestic helpers overseas, in an about-turn welcomed by campaigners who said it would help prevent women falling prey to human trafficking.
Thousands of Indonesian women travel to places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia every year to become maids, attracted by promises of higher salaries despite reports of widespread abuses and near slave-like living conditions.
Jakarta had previously said it would stop sending maids overseas from this year, on the grounds of protecting the women, sparking concerns it would push more poor Indonesians desperate for jobs into illegal migration.
However a senior official at the Manpower Ministry told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that Jakarta would not go ahead with the ban but it has been in talks with countries to ensure Indonesian maids are treated in a āhumaneā way.
āWe are not stopping Indonesians going overseas to become domestic workers but we want better protection for them,ā said Mr Soes Hindharno, director for the protection and placement of Indonesian migrant workers abroad.
He said this includes preventing what he called āmulti-tasking workā by Indonesian maids to reduce exploitation.
āIf they are housekeepers, they are housekeepers – they clean, cook and iron. If they are babysitters, they are babysitters – you canāt ask a babysitter to bathe your dog.ā
Currently, Indonesian women who work as maids abroad are required to stay at the home of their employer, handling tasks from cleaning to looking after children or the elderly – a rule activists say making them vulnerable to abuse.
Migrant activists welcomed the decision, but said more needed to be done to combat human trafficking including ensuring women aware of their rights when leaving for work overseas.
āIt is a basic right to go abroad to work. If the government stops this, we will only see more human trafficking cases,ā said Mr Mulyadi, a co-founder of rights group Migrant Care, who like many Indonesian goes by one name.
Indonesia since 2015 has banned women from going to 21 Middle Eastern countries following a series of abuse cases but high-demand for maids has encouraged traffickers to find ways around the curbs.
Mr Hindharno said the Middle East ban would stay in place.
Domestic helpers make up more than a third of the six million Indonesian working abroad.
The Ministry of Manpower has a āfeedbackā system which allows an employer to recommend that a worker not be employed here if s/he is undesirable or ābadā. I have always been opposed to this because MOMās decision to accept such feedback is based on the employerās story only without any proper investigation.
I donāt think such a feedback system should exist, whether it is a complaint by an employer or a worker. Claims and complaints need to be investigated properly. But now I have decided to turn the tables and write negative feedback about abusive employers to MOM.
What triggered this? This afternoon, despite acknowledgement by MOM that an employer (who is an SMU professor with a Phd from MIT) had pressured a domestic worker to kneel on the floor to say sorry for mistakes made, and had to write 500 times āI will follow what grandma tells me toā as punishment, she was still unfairly terminated by the employer and had to return home.
Another domestic worker was threatened and had a knife pointed in her direction by the employer. Despite filing a complaint at MOM, she was told she had āno caseā and had to return home.
Why should migrant workers have to suffer in silence when such injustice happens? Why should you have to lose your job when your employer points a knife at you, humiliates and tortures you mentally? We need to take action.
If abusive employers can submit negative feedback about you for no good reason and MOM blacklists you without thorough investigations, it is time to fight back. I donāt like this feedback system. But it looks like we have no choice because too many migrant workers have been unfairly punished by it.
You can feedback an abusive employer and recommend that s/he be barred from hiring workers to the following email: [email protected]. If you are a domestic worker and need help with this, Iām happy to assist you. HOME Singapore
In the past two years, five maids working in Singapore were radicalised, although they “did not pose an imminent security threat” at the time, said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The maids were among some 70 foreigners investigated during that period, and had been radicalised through social media. Some of the foreigners were later deported after the authorities in their home countries were informed of their cases.
The statement yesterday came after Indonesia’s anti-terror police commandos rounded up four women in the past week on suspicion of terrorism. Among them was Dian Yulia Novi, 27. She had worked in Singapore between 2008 and 2009, said an MHA spokesman.
Dian had allegedly been planning to mount a suicide bomb attack on the presidential palace in Jakarta. In a television interview broadcast last Tuesday, she said she was first exposed to radical Islam through Facebook by opening profiles of extremists while working as a maid abroad.
She worked for a family with three children here, and as a maid for three years in Taiwan.
But Dian did not show signs of being radicalised during her time in Singapore, said the MHA spokesman, who added: “Our security agencies are in contact with their counterparts regarding her case.”
Most of the 70 foreigners investigated in the past two years “were radicalised through their exposure to radical propaganda on social media”, said MHA. Some then radicalised others using radical propaganda from online sources.
The Straits Times understands that the five maids were among those radicalised via social media.
While they did not plan to carry out acts of violence in Singapore at the time they were investigated, their presence posed a security concern for Singapore, MHA said.
Six Bangladeshis charged with offences under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act are serving their sentences here.
With radicalisation through the Internet being a worldwide phenomenon, MHA said social media platform owners have to ensure “their platforms are not used to promote radicalism and terrorism”.
A more effective approach in the longer term may be sensitising the public to the dangers of extremist rhetoric and equipping them with social media literacy so they will not be vulnerable to terrorist propaganda online, added the ministry. Those who notice people showing signs of radicalisation should inform the authorities.
“The security agencies meanwhile continue to work closely with their foreign counterparts to share intelligence on terrorism activities,” said MHA.
Dian was a member of a cell based in Solo, Central Java. She had hidden a “rice cooker” bomb in her room, where she was arrested on Dec 10.
The arrests of Dian and three other women mark a shift in strategy, with Indonesian militants recruiting women instead of men to mount attacks, national police chief Tito Karnavian has said.
Maids from Indonesia said they were worried about being typecast after the news.
“It affects us too because people will think other Indonesians will end up the same way,” said Ms Sri Hartatik, 35, who has worked here for 11 years. “It is common for Muslims, including domestic workers here, to read about religion on social media,” she said. But not everyone does so, she added, and neither does she.
Mr Gary Chin, chief executive of maid agency Nation Employment, said that employers should watch out for sudden changes in their helpers’ behaviour, show them concern and take an interest in who their friends are.
“If they sense anything amiss, they should inform the agency as well, so that we can arrange for counsellors or family members to speak to the domestic helper.”
Dr Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, noted that militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is investing heavily in recruiting in cyber space.
While Singapore has secured its physical space, it “now needs to better protect its citizens and residents, including the labour population, from cyber radicalisation”.
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