Though uncommon, migrant domestic helper in Singapore can be at risk of mistreatment by their employers.
On Tuesday (16 Mar), a Singaporean housewife was sentenced to 15 months’ jail for abusing her Indonesian domestic helper.
She allegedly forced the helper to punch her own face for 50 times, and chipped off her tooth using a meat pounder.
Indonesian helper Yuni Dwi Lestari started working at housewife Mun Sau Yeng’s Sengkang flat in Apr 2018, reports The Straits Times (ST).
Two months into Ms Yuni’s employment, Mun used a vacuum cleaner floor nozzle to strike her shoulder, which left a slight bruise.
Then, in Jul 2018, she struck Ms Yuni’s head with her fist.
In another episode in Nov 2018, the housewife became furious that the helper had a can of sardines for lunch, instead of for dinner as she’d planned.
According to ST, Ms Mun hit the helper on both cheeks several times before asking her to strike her own face while counting for over 50 times.
Ms Mun apparently believed that Ms Yuni could remember the pain better this way, said the Deputy Public Prosecutor.
The abuse, sadly, continued to escalate.
In Feb 2019, Ms Mun saw fingerprints on her kitchen windows and blamed them on Ms Yuni’s inadequate cleaning.
The enraged housewife wanted to see the then 24-year-old helper’s teeth “drop”, reported Channel NewsAsia (CNA).
Ms Mun then instructed the helper to take a meat pounder from the kitchen to strike her own teeth.
Ms Yuni had to strike her own mouth for over 50 times with the meat pounder until 3 of her teeth came loose.
However, dissatisfied that none of her teeth dropped, Ms Mun took the kitchen tool, pulled down Ms Yuni’s lower lip, hit her mouth once and chipped off one of her teeth.
After a subsequent incident on 7 Feb 2019, where Ms Mun punched her mouth about 10 times, her teeth became loose and she ended up in pain.
Ms Mun did not take her to see a doctor, and told Ms Yuni to apply ointment on her injuries.
No longer able to put up with the abuse, the domestic helper reached out to the Centre for Domestic Employees for help, who then contacted the police.
Ms Mun apparently has a history of depression and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a Institute of Mental Health (IMH) report.
She reported hearing a voice telling her to hit the helper.
Defence lawyer Kalidass Murugaiyan said that her conditions contributed to her actions, as she felt that the domestic helper wasn’t matching up to her standards.
She started on medication in May 2020 and has apparently responded well. Mr Murugaiyan argued she should be sentenced to a “long rigorous programme” for treatment instead.
However, the prosecutor’s reply was that the reports didn’t explain how her psychiatric conditions caused the offences.
There’s also no objective evidence to suggest that Mun heard an inner voice, the prosecutor said.
Nonetheless, Mun pleaded guilty to voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means to a domestic helper and voluntarily causing hurt.
4 more charges are pending.
However, she could have been jailed for up to 7 years and fined for voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means.
In many cases, domestic helpers leave their families behind to come to Singapore and earn an honest living.
As justice is served for Ms Yuni, the streak of abuse cases might become a wake-up call for Singapore to better look into the interests of domestic helpers.
At the end of the day, it boils down to respect and empathy — domestic helpers are humans too.
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Featured image adapted from WUWM.
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