DAILY EXPRESS NEWS
Sabahan youths 'trapped'
14 July, 2008
Kota Kinabalu: Some 70 Sabahan youths are in a desperate situation in Singapore with the girls forced into prostitution and the boys doing menial work after they were duped by employment agents with promises of good jobs.
This was revealed by a 21-year-old Sabahan who managed to escape a recruitment syndicate that forced him to work as a labourer. He claimed they were being kept in the same apartment building that he was in.
The youth from the East Coast of Sabah said he wished to inform parents and relatives of these Sabahans that their children have no means of fleeing as their passports and identity documents like ICs were being kept by the syndicates. Their movements are also monitored by guards," he said.
Social activist, Anne Keyworth, who has been vocal about local youths falling prey to unscrupulous employment agents, urged enforcement authorities to take immediate action. She appealed to the authorities to take up the youth's experience as a case of human trafficking that needs to be tackled urgently.
Keyworth, who is now helping the youth come to terms with his trauma, said the Sabahan youths, especially the girls in the apartment building, must be rescued and brought back to Sabah.
She also urged non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and missionaries who conduct welfare and charity work in the rural areas in Sabah to warn the people of ploys by syndicates claiming to be employment agencies.
"The modus operandi is quite similar to other cases in the past where rural youths were the main target of these human traffickers who claimed to be agents of employment agencies. And the worst thing is that our own locals are the middlemen for these syndicates. I hope relevant authorities would seriously look into this case and create policies that can ensure our youths are not easily duped by unscrupulous people," she said.
She also urged City Hall and the respective local councils to tear down all illegal flyers and ads on employment opportunities to work abroad pasted on public phones and walls of shophouses so that local youths would not be lured into the unknown.
According to the youth who returned home on July 6, in most instances the Sabahans were misled by the agents with promises of jobs in hotels and attractive salaries.
However on arriving in Singapore they are told there are no hotel jobs, leaving the youngsters with no choice but take up jobs as labourers while the women are coerced into vice.
Asked how he got to know about Sabahan girls being forced into vice, he said he and a few friends saw one girl crying at a stairway in the building.
"While walking up to our apartment, we saw a girl wearing a mini skirt and sexy attire sitting on the staircase and crying miserably. She said her name is Christina and was from Penampang. She was victimised by a recruitment agency.
"She was promised many choices such as in tourism, restaurants and doing laundry work but all were lies. She said she was raped by the agent and forced to be a prostitute.
"The girl said a pimp guards her closely and would bring her to hotels to entertain men. According to the girl, there are many Sabahan girls in the building in a similar situation but was not sure how many," he said.
Another time, he said he saw several women pushed by guards inside a car one night and recognised one of them to be a Sabahan. He heard the Sabahan girl utter "Sabar-sabar bah!Ésia tau la apa mau buat" (Be patient bahÉI know what to do) before she was shoved into the car.
Recalling his experience, he said sometime in March this year he and three friends met a man claiming to be a recruitment agent for locals and promised to get them good jobs in hotels in Singapore. They met the agent at his rural hometown.
"At that time I was working in a plantation and felt excited about the prospect of working in Singapore. Also, we believed the agent's promise to provide us with hotel jobs in the country whose currency value is much higher than ours. Hence, we complied with the agent's requirement to pay him RM1,000 as processing fee and had to pay for our own ticket to Singapore as well as the cost of international passports," he said.
In two days, he and three youths from the same hometown boarded a flight to Senai Airport in Johor Baru and were picked up by a man to go to Singapore. They also saw about 20 Sabahans with different agents at the airport but did not have the chance to chat with them.
Their nightmare began when they were placed in an apartment and realised that the room door was locked from outside. Next morning, the door was opened and they were allowed into the living room.
"A man told us there were no hotel jobs but that work as labourers cleaning septic tanks was available. Since we had spent our money to go there, we accepted the job, motivated by the prospect of still earning a decent income.
"We were told that the salary would be S$900 per month but we were forced to work from 8am to midnight with only one meal at 8pm. We were working under pressure and treated as slaves and the working conditions were very bad.
"We would be beaten if we came late to work or delayed cleaning the tanks that smelled of faeces. There was also an occasion when we accidentally swallowed bits of waste when cleaning the tank because we were not provided with masks or safety gear," he said, tears streaming down his cheeks during the interview with Daily Express.
He said since the syndicate did not provide three meals to them they sought work in a restaurant near the apartment building in return for food as wages. They also did not receive their salaries as promised, the reason being that the money was used to pay for their accommodation and food.
One day, three of them conspired to assault their minder at the septic tank premises and managed to retrieve their passports that were left in the minder's car.
"We saw a lorry loaded with boxes and hung on the side for fear the driver may see us. After some time, we climbed into the back of the moving lorry.
"We alighted from the lorry when it reached the city and surrendered ourselves to the Singapore Immigration Department. We were told that we could leave as our papers were in order. But the only problem we faced was we had no money to buy the tickets.
"So we walked along the street and met several men who recognised us as Sabahans. Later we came across two soldiers from the Mahkota Camp in Kluang, Johor and we related our experiences to them.
"They were one Corporal Samsuddin who comes from Kota Belud and Lance Corporal Matthew from Penampang. They helped us purchase our tickets to home...we returned to Sabah safely on June 22," he said.
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