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 Islahatul Alif on April 28, 2018, and abandoned her on the island, which is between 1,300km and 1,400km away from Surabaya.
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 was 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 S$13,000 (RM44,490) on Friday after she pleaded guilty to two charges under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act – failing to repatriate Islahatul to her hometown and employing the maid as a food stall assistant even though she did not have a valid pass to work as one. — The Straits Times/ANN
