Indonesian Erwiana Sulistyaningsih rests at a hospital (Photo: AFP)
Hong Kong:
An Indonesian former maid on Tuesday told a court for the first time
how she was starved, beaten and ritually humiliated by her Hong Kong
employers in a case that has sparked international outrage.
Erwiana
Sulistyaningsih described in vivid detail how for months she lived on
nothing but bread and rice, slept only four hours a day and was beaten
so badly by her former employer, Law Wan-tung that she was knocked
unconscious.
"I was tortured," she told the courtroom through a translator on the opening day of the trial.
"She
often hit me, sometimes she would hit me from behind, sometimes she hit
me in the front. I was hit so often sometimes I got a headache. She hit
me in my mouth (so) I had difficulty breathing." the maid told the
court.
Opening the prosecution,
solicitor Louisa Lai detailed the harrowing litany of abuse the former
maid allegedly suffered including how she was told to wrap her
sore-covered feet in plastic bags "because of the smell".
Whereas the employer Law Wan-tung denied all charges of abuse.
Sulistyaningsih's
case has shone a spotlight on the plight of migrant domestic helpers
in Asia and the Middle East after reports of torture and even killings.
In
March, a Malaysian couple was sentenced to hang for starving their
Indonesian maid to death, while in the same week a Singaporean couple
pleaded guilty to abuse after their helper lost 20 kilos in seven
months.
Such cases have prompted a
clampdown on domestic worker visas in some countries, Myanmar suspended a
seven-month-old scheme in September and Indonesia has pledged to stop
sending domestic workers abroad from 2017.
Pictures
of Sulistyaningsih, who was admitted to a hospital in Indonesia in
January emaciated and in a critical condition, sparked widespread anger
in her home country and even drew comment from the president.
But
on Tuesday the 23-year-old remained calm as she described in graphic
detail her alleged abuse, including one incident where she was stripped
naked, sprayed with water and made to stand in front of a fan in the
middle of winter.
Hong Kong is home to nearly 300,000 maids, mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines.
Thousands
took to the streets in May calling for better working conditions and
greater legal protection for domestic helpers and the case remains a
rallying point for many.
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