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Maid flees via rubbish chute, employer disputes claims

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Foreign domestic workers in Singapore. Yahoo Singapore file photo

In what may be a first case of its kind in Singapore, a foreign domestic worker fled her employer’s home through a rubbish chute, sustaining multiple injuries in the process.

According to The Straits Times, the 27-year-old Indonesian maid, named Rindu, attempted to climb down a rubbish chute in a seventh floor flat last November and fell into a rubbish heap. She sustained a broken lip and a fractured leg, as well as spinal injuries which require eight rings attached to her spine to hold it in place.

Rindu underwent three operations at the National University Hospital and was discharged last month.

“I regret jumping… but I didn’t know what else to do. I was really afraid of what my employer was going to do to me,” Rindu was quoted as saying. She claimed that her employer constantly berated her and was made to work from as early as 5am.

The Straits Times also reported that a Ministry of Manpower (MOM) spokesman said the worker is not claiming abuse or mistreatment, nor was she confined or prevented from leaving her employer’s home.

Rindu’s employers, who had only employed her for two and a half months, dispute her claims and have engaged a lawyer, according to the paper. Ironically, they had already requested a change of workers before the incident, and a new worker was set to replace Rindu in a week’s time.

Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME) executive director Jolovan Wham, told Yahoo Singapore that he came across Rindu while visiting another domestic worker in hospital. He then referred her case to MOM.

Rindu is currently recovering in a shelter in Batam. Wham is also trying to raise money for her medical bills. While Home has encountered cases of maids escaping their employers’ homes by jumping out the window, this is the first case they have seen of a maid jumping down the rubbish chute.

Wham said that while there was no “physical or sexual abuse” on the employer’s part), it was a number of factors that caused Rindu to resort to jumping down the rubbish chute. For example, Rindu speaks only basic English and had “no social support” as she could not go out. It was also her first time working in Singapore.

Wham noted, “She had to work long hours, didn’t have enough rest, didn’t have any days off, and there was the verbal abuse. I think this all accumulated and caused her to feel so stressed out that she felt the need to escape. They didn’t give her a key, and the door was always locked, so she felt that she had no way out.”

Asked what can be done to prevent such incidents from occurring again, Wham said, “Domestic workers like Rindu need the full protection of our labour laws and to be able to have their weekly rest days without fear of losing their jobs or being penalised for it. Rindu also had no one to turn to for help and was verbally abused.”

Wham added that verbal abuse is a “significant problem” for foreign domestic workers here, citing a HOME survey where 51 per cent of participants said they had been verbally abused by their employer.