Today’s newspaper headlines featured a 19 years old Indonesian lady bearing her breast to photographers. Unlike United Kingdom’s Daily Mirror’s Page 3 girls, it’s unusal to have ladies bearing their breast on newspaper here in Malaysia.. Today’s photo was an exception. It was this picture.
KUALA LUMPUR: A severely bruised and scalded maid, described by officials as the worst abuse case they have seen, has been given shelter at the Indonesian embassy here.
Nirmala Bonet just before she started work in September.
The wife of a managing director has been remanded for nine days to help police investigate the matter.
The plight of 19-year-old Nirmala Bonet came to light after a condominium guard saw her sitting and crying on a staircase, with ugly bruises all over her swollen face and bleeding from the head and mouth on Monday afternoon.
He called police, who were shocked to find that her whole body, including her breasts and back, was severely burnt and scalded.
19-year-old Nirmala Bonet showing the injures sustained over the last five months while working as a maid for a couple in Jalan Tun Razak.
They then took the girl to hospital for treatment and later to the Indonesian embassy where she was given shelter.
Nirmala, from Kupang in Nusa Tenggara Timur, came here in September last year with the hope that her parents, both farmers, would be happy and proud of her when they saw how much money she earned for them.
“When I go back, what am I going to tell my parents when they see all the scars?” she asked.
Nirmala claimed that for the last five months her employer’s wife had abused her daily, burning her with a hot iron, pouring boiling water on her and using other objects to hit her.
She said she had many opportunities to escape but did not know where or whom to seek help from.
Nirmala said the first time she was abused was when she accidentally broke a mug while washing it.
“She (employer’s wife) then threw boiling water on me.
“One day, she got upset while I was ironing. She said the clothes had not been properly ironed and slapped me.
“She took the iron out of my hand and pressed it against my breasts,” said Nirmala.
She said she would only be given medication if she asked for it and she was expected to wake up at 6am every day despite her injuries and condition.
Dang Wangi OCPD Asst Comm Hadi Ho Abdullah said Nirmala was treated for her injures at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
“A team of policemen from the district police headquarters detained the managing director’s wife at about 11.30am on Tuesday.
The Indonesian embassy’s head of information division, Budhi Rahardjo, and Foreign Workers Agencies Association vice-president Jeffrey Foo both said this was the worst case of maid abuse they had ever seen.
Speaking about maids, couple of years ago, we had a young Indonesian maid working for us .She’s a little bit odd though. On the first day we hired her, she didn’t know how to open our car door.
She wasn’t very helpful at all and she spent most of her time loitering around the house. Obviously, we didn’t beat her up or anything and further we gave her complete freedom. So she got to know some other foreign workers around the neighbourhood. Months later, she dated a Bangladeshi guy. Then weeks later, she eloped with the Bangladeshi guy (I swear we didn’t abuse her). Unfortunately, the Bangladeshi guy stole all her money and ran away.
Well, that’s not the end of the matter. She then met a married Malay man, had sex with him and then she bore him a child. Unfortunately again, the married man dumped her.
No idea what’s she doing now. The last time she dropped by was to ask for money to buy milk for her child..
