Filipina maid plans to sue ex-employer
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A 29-year-old Filipina maid is planning to sue her former employer whom she claimed had starved and beaten her for nearly 18 months.
Nenita Batiancila Elcamel, from Cebu province, said she weighed about 60kg when she first arrived to work in 2013.
On November 13, Nenita was carried out by policemen from her former employer’s condominium in Kelana Jaya with her head drenched in blood and bruises on her body. She weighed around 40kg.
Nenita said she was made to work around the clock with little to no food and feared for her life.
“I became so thin that I would break down in tears when I saw myself in the mirror,” she said.
She claimed she was only given water, slices of bread or a pack of instant noodles to last her the whole day.
She also alleged that her former employer would sometimes starve her for two days. When the employer’s husband bought her food, Nenita said the woman would toss it into the trash can.
“She deducted 400 ringgit [Bt3,740] from my salary every month for my food and toiletries. She also charged me for using the electricity and water,” Nenita said.
“She said she was paying me a lot of money and I had to earn everything she was paying me for.
“She would wake me up at 5am and make me clean each room for an hour.
“Sometimes I felt like collapsing because I was so hungry but she would beat me with a hanger or a stick or pour water on me.”
Nenita was brought out of the condominium after neighbours called police last month, saying that the suspect had left the maid home alone with a gash on her head.
Nenita said her former employer also attacked her with an aerosol spray can for apparently being dissatisfied with the way she carried out her job.
On Friday, Nenita’s former employer pleaded guilty at the Petaling Jaya magistrate’s court to hitting her and was fined 4,000 ringgit and jailed for a day.
A spokesman of Nenita’s foreign worker recruitment agency, however, said the agency would file a civil case against Nenita’s former employer. “We want to get justice for Nenita and make this a lesson to employers to treat their maids as humans,” he said.
