Cause of RI maid's fatal S'pore fall still unclear

How the latest Indonesian maid came to fall from a high-rise flat is still unclear, Indonesian Embassy Counselor Sukmo Yuwono said Friday.

Karini, 34, was found by the police at the foot of a Serangoon North block early Thursday morning. The Indonesian, who went by only one name, was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and died there later.

Sukmo said Karini's agent told him that it was raining heavily on Thursday morning and she may have been closing the windows of her employer's fourth-storey flat when she slipped and fell. A wet rag was believed to have been found near the windows. The agent declined to comment when contacted by The Straits Times.

Sukmo said he hoped the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) would “do a thorough investigation and find out what happened”.

An MOM spokesman said the ministry and police were investigating how Karini fell and what she might have been doing at the time. He said: “We will need to interview the foreign domestic worker's employer, household members, the employment agent as well as eyewitnesses in the course of our investigations.”

The case has been classified as unnatural death. Karini is the ninth Indonesian maid to die after falling from a high-rise unit this year.

Sukmo said Karini had been working for her employer for a week before the fall and it was her first time working in Singapore. Neighbors said Karini took care of her employer's elderly mother, who is bedridden. Her employers and their family live in a maisonette. Sukmo said the maid's body will be flown to her home in West Java today.

Employers who do not provide a safe work environment for their maids can be fined up to S$5,000 (US$3,919) or jailed six months, or both. They can also be permanently barred from hiring maids.

In the past five years, 14 employers have been punished on this count. The Singaporean government has said it is reviewing how adequate these penalties are.