Woman fined after leaving domestic helper stranded in Batam, more than 1,000km away from home
Shaffiq AlkhatibCourt CorrespondentSINGAPORE – A food stall owner lied to her Indonesian domestic helper, claiming that she wanted to send her home to Surabaya for a purported 10-day holiday, before cancelling the maid’s work permit.
Singaporean Hong Xuanyu travelled to Batam with Ms Islahatul Alif on April 28, 2018, and abandoned her on the Indonesian island, which is between 1,300km and 1,400km away from Surabaya in Java, another island.
Ms Islahatul became distraught upon realising that she had been left stranded in Batam city with no means of contacting her loved ones as her mobile phone battery had drained.
She managed to borrow a taxi driver’s mobile phone and called her employment agent in Singapore, who arranged for her to stay with a friend of the agent’s colleague in Batam before returning to Singapore.
Hong, 51, was fined $13,000 on Friday after she pleaded guilty to two charges under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act – failing to repatriate Ms Islahatul to her home town and employing the maid as a food stall assistant even though she did not have a valid pass to work as one.
Ministry of Manpower prosecuting officer Teo Sijing told the court: “(Hong) failed in her duty as an employer to accord basic human dignity to her migrant domestic worker... and had treated her like chattel to be discarded when keeping her was more trouble than it was worth.”
Ms Islahatul started working for Hong in February 2018. Hong broke the law by making the helper work at her fish soup stall at Jurong Point shopping mall almost every day for about three weeks.
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Hong got angry with Ms Islahatul at around 7.30am on April 28, 2018, when the helper failed to prepare breakfast.
At around noon, Hong told the maid that she would be sending her home to Surabaya for a purported 10-day holiday, and the journey there would be made via Batam.
The prosecutor said: “Islahatul initially rejected this offer of a holiday, as she feared that the accused would replace her if she went home.
“However, the accused convinced Islahatul that she was not intending to replace her, and insisted on sending Islahatul home. Islahatul reluctantly agreed.”
The two women were travelling to the Singapore Cruise Centre in Maritime Square when Hong asked a friend to help her cancel the maid’s work permit.
It was cancelled that very day.
On their way to Batam, Hong handed Ms Islahatul her salary of around $350, after deducting the cost of the ferry ticket.
When they arrived in Batam before 6pm that day, Hong told the maid to take a taxi to an airport and fly home to Surabaya. She did not give Ms Islahatul any money for either the taxi ride or the flight home. She also did not return Ms Islahatul’s work permit card to her.
Instead, Hong told the maid to pay for her own journey to Surabaya. Hong then took a ferry back to Singapore.
Ms Islahatul returned to Singapore on May 2, 2018, but court documents did not disclose her current location.
