A Hong Kong mother of two was jailed for six years for punching and torturing her domestic helpers, in a case that has shocked many in Hong Kong and sparked deep examination about how employers treat their Indonesian and Filipino staff.
A Hong Kong court found former beautician Law Wan-tung (44) guilty of punching Erwiana Sulistyaningsih and another maid, as well as beating them with mops and threatening to kill their relatives, behaviour which presiding judge Amanda Woodcock described as "contemptible".
The case has become a major focus for improving workers' rights in Asia in countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, where hundreds of thousands of people are forced to emigrate to find work as domestic helpers and drivers, much as the Irish did in the 19th and early 20th century.
Brutal treatment
In a CNN report run over shocking pictures of
Ms Erwiana
in hospital badly burned and beaten, Ms Erwiana remarked: “I hope the government can open its eyes, its heart, so no one can experience the same abuse that I did. In my heart, and in my body, I still have scars, and that makes it difficult for me to forbid. But in my heart I forgive her.”
The brutal treatment meted out to Ms Erwiana has also prompted debate in Hong Kong for more enlightened policies on how it treats migrant workers.
Under the current rules, helpers earn far below the minimum wage and are also required to live with their employers. With space at a premium in Hong Kong, helpers often have to live in tiny rooms in small apartments and, feeling they have no recourse to the law, they face wide scale abuse from employers.
Ms Law looked completely surprised when the sentence was passed after she was found guilty of 18 of 20 the charges of abuse. She was also ordered to pay a fine of 15,000 Hong Kong dollars (€1,727). She had pleaded not guilty to the 20 charges but had admitted one of not buying insurance cover for her maid.
About 30 supporters of Ms Erwiana protested outside the court, in what is a hugely emotive issue for a large part of the territory’s population.
Hong Kong has about 330,000 foreign domestic helpers, most of them from the Philippines and Indonesia and nearly all women, who can earn more in Hong Kong to send back to their families than they can at home.
Ms Erwiana, who arrived in Hong Kong in 2013, returned to Indonesia in January last year where doctors said burns on her body were caused by boiling water.
Photographs from the trial showed that Ms Erwiana had suffered appalling abuse and torture at the hands of her employer, and prompted Indonesia's then-president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to describe her treatment as torture.
“My government needs to . . . provide jobs and pay adequately. If they can’t, then the cycle continues and we’ll be forced to go overseas . . . ,” she said.