Displaying items by tag: domestic slavery

‘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.

A recent report revealed Bradford social workers turned a blind eye when a 15-year-old grooming victim took part in an Islamic marriage to one of her abusers. One of her social workers even attended the ‘wedding ceremony’. Despite the teenager not being a Muslim, professionals who were meant to protect her allowed the family of her 'husband' to foster her after she became pregnant. The council even paid them for fostering her. The terrified girl was trapped in 'domestic slavery', too scared to leave the controlling relationship, fearing she would be the victim of an honour killing. The report, which makes difficult and distressing reading, found that children suffered abuse no child should have to experience, and some youngsters in Bradford still remain unprotected. The report’s authors said, 'We believe that practice across all agencies is improving, but there is still much more to do.'