Court Jails Singaporean for 10 Months After Indonesian Maid-Scalding Case

Jakarta Globe/AFP, February 6, 2009 

Singapore. A Singaporean who poured hot water on her Indonesian maid's back and forced her to sleep among a group of dogs has been sentenced to 10 months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Brenda Tan Bee Khim, 40, a housewife, was sentenced on Wednesday for the 2006 attack on the maid, identified as Tasiyem, The Straits Times reported.

Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Four days after the incident, which left the maid with second-degree burns on her neck and back, Tan tried to hide her crime by sending Tasiyem back to Indonesia, the report said.

"It is fortunate that the indignant family and friends of the maid in Indonesia have had the good sense to do all that was necessary to bring the accused to justice and to expose her foul deed," the newspaper quoted Isaac Tan, the prosecutor, as saying.

During the trial before Judge Loo Ngan Chor, Tasiyem testified that while she was employed as a maid by Tan, she was made to sleep alongside dogs on the balcony of Tan's apartment, the
report said.

Muslims, who make up a large majority of Indonesia's population, consider dogs to be unclean.

Advocacy groups say that about 170,000 migrant women, many of them from Indonesia and the Philippines, work as domestic helpers in Singapore, where cases of employers abusing their domestic staff appear often in the local media.

Singapore's Ministry of Manpower has said that 90 percent of maids are happy working in the city-state.


Agence France-Presse