An Indonesian domestic helper hailing from Rembang, Central Java, claims she was forced by employers to sleep outside their house because their dog was missing.
The maid, Naniarti, slept outside on Sunday night (March 21-22), becoming easy prey to mosquitoes and then soaked in the rain.
“Fellow workers also from Java rescued her and took her to the Indonesian Embassy for protection,” Javanese community association Pasomaja chairman Machrodji Maghfur said in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Naniarti had only recently started working for the employer, Ahing, a noodle businessman. She came to Malaysia on Jan. 6, 2010, under the auspices of Semarang-based recruitment agency PT ARNI Famili, despite that Indonesia has since June 26, 2009, officially stopped the dispatch of domestic helpers to Malaysia pending the issuance of a revised MoU.
Naniarti said that on Sunday morning she had gone with her employer to his new house to clean it and to make preparations for his planned move there. Later when they returned to his house that afternoon, his dog was missing.
Naniarti’s female employer punished her, ordering her to sleep outside. During the night it rained heavily, causing the housemaid to become soaking wet and cold.
Around midnight a Malaysian police patrol stopped in front of the house seeing Naniarti standing outside soaking wet.
On telling them her story, the police requested her papers, including her passport, and she said all these things were with her employers who were still asleep inside. The police then decided to continue their patrol without doing anything to help Naniarti.
At 8 a.m. the following day Naniarti was assisted by fellow workers from Java who were staying nearby. They took her to Pasomaja, where Naniarti told them and several Indonesian reporters the story.
“Naniarti's employers were simply outrageous people, loving their dog more than their maid,” Maghfur said.
Naniarti wished to stay on in Malaysia because she had not received her wages yet. In her hometown in Rembang, she has a husband and child, he said.
The Indonesian embassy must summon her employers, Maghfur said.
