Displaying items by tag: Merlance

‘Help me, I am being tortured by my employer. I'm covered in blood every day, help me!’ Meriance Kabu wrote, then folded the note and threw it out of the locked iron gates of the apartment where she worked as a live-in maid. A passer-by found it and took it to a retired police officer. ‘If she had stayed there, she would have died,’ he later said. That same day Malaysian police knocked on the door of the apartment Meriance hadn't left in eight months. ‘I felt as if I was falling,’ she says, recalling when she saw the officers. ‘They said, “Don't be afraid, we are here”. At that moment I felt like I could breathe again. The officers called me closer and I told them the truth.’ Her story contained distressing details. Nine years later she still fights for justice. Recently Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to improve the conditions of Indonesian domestic workers. Indonesia is lobbying for the case against Meriance's employer to be resumed.