Who is Mautik Hani?

[NOV]

Do we care?

This is who she is not:

She is not a 'statistic.'

She is not an 'isolated incident'.

Mautik Hani was a woman.

She was a daughter; she was someone's friend.

Somebody called her 'my neighbour'; another called her 'my sister'.


Mautik Hani had dreams to chase;

questions to ask; memories to share.

There were things that made her sad;

and there were things that made her laugh.

She had feelings; she had ideas; and she had gifts to share

Her body could be flooded with pain, or pierced with joy.

She carried burdens, and somewhere, she bore hope.


Mautik Hani was a person.

No different from you,

No different from me.

We asked her in.

And then we let her die.

~

Bruised. Beaten. Her bones exposed.

The smell of rotting flesh permeated the air.

Bound. Gagged. Unconscious.

Her body weary; attacked; abused.

She slipped away from consciousness.

As did we.

~

In the past two years, Tenaganita has handled 265 cases of domestic workers who've been beaten, raped, deprived of wages, harassed, violated, kept in isolation, tortured and abused. While we've been able to get some compensation for cases of unpaid wages, not a single case of violence or abuse has gone to court or been brought to justice.


Police investigations are sluggish, court systems inaccessible, and processes drag on endlessly. Often, the victims drop the cases out of weariness and go home as the final tethers of hope snap. Some wait persistently, stuck in the hole of trauma, each passing day taking away with it possibilities of justice.


We see the numbers grow, we watch the statistics swell, and we close our eyes as the perpetrators walk away.


The stories of these women are horrific;


Sodomised.


Scalded.


Lacerations on the ******.


Forced to eat cockroaches.


Mouth stuffed with chilies.


Drowned.


Burned.


Face attacked with a fish scraper.


Raped.

These stories are real. These women are real. Each one is testament to the reality we've created around us.

We keep these women unseen and unheard, invisible from the world. They are present only when we want them to work for us, and yet we won't even recognise what they do as 'work'.

We are so afraid they'll run away; we convince ourselves they'll pick up 'diseases' and infect us. We tell ourselves that we're just protecting our families. We quietly feel superior to them. We don't let them speak to the neighbours. We worry when they have friends. We feel their work is simple, and yet we don't do it ourselves.

We throw a fit when we need to work on weekends, yet we won't even grant them a day off. We expect pay raises, and cluck our tongues in shock when they ask for it. We hear about 'a maid who was abused' and quickly share the story about 'the maid who stole from her employer'. We look at the way our friends treat them, convince ourselves that 'we're not like that' and yet we stay silent about it.


This is not a generic 'we'. It's a 'we' made up of you, of me, of your sister, your friend, your husband, your wife, your boss, your neighbour, your father, your teacher — every person in this country is contained in that 'we'. Make no mistake of this; we let this happen.

We let this happen because we've ignored the thousands of signs that have led to this point. Signs contained in domestic workers whose wages were never paid, who've been kept in isolation, who've been made to work every day of their lives, who've been slapped, who've been burned, who've been put down.

Do a thousand domestic workers need to die before we decide it is enough? Or have we removed ourselves so far from our conscience that this becomes something we merely wince at but stay silent about?

Our actions have harmed these women so severely.


But so have our inactions.


Silence has a way of legitimising violence, and our deafening silence when faced with the realities of domestic workers in our country has done exactly that.


Mautik Hani died at 36 years old from the beatings of her employers.

Mautik Hani also died because we brushed off each case that came before her as an 'isolated incident'.


We saw the signs, we closed our eyes, and we let her die.
_________________
Never argue with a fool or he will drag you down to his level and beat you at it through sheer experience!

[NOV]

The Star wrote:

It's murder: Indonesian maid dies of alleged abuse By CHRISTINA TAN http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/26/nation/20091026152422&sec=nation KLANG: The Indonesian maid who was allegedly abused and found locked up in a toilet has died in hospital, and her case has been reclassified as murder. Mautik Hani, 36, from Surabaya, who had multiple injuries on various parts of her body, died in the intensive care unit of the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital at about 10am on Monday. Two officers from the Indonesian Embassy and Selangor executive councillor Dr Xavier Jayakumar were at the hospital on Monday to gather more information on the situation. Mautik, who had a severe wound on her leg as well as bruises on her arms and face, was rescued by police from a house in Taman Sentosa on Oct 20. She was found in the toilet of the house following a tip-off. A married couple, believed to be her employers, have been arrested by police and remanded for further investigations. Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital director Dr Ghazali Hasni Md Hassan said the victim, who had suffered multiple injuries, was admitted to the ICU last Saturday. She was unconscious and died without regaining conscious, he added. Dr Ghazali said Mautik was treated by a group of medical specialists, including orthopedic and anesthetic specialists, and a surgical team. She was due for surgery but was not fit yet, he said, adding that she had not responded to antibiotics and drugs. She was also suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, he added. District police chief Asst Comm Mohamad Mat Yusop said the case had been reclassified under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder. It was initially investigated under Section 326 for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons. ACP Mohamad said a post-mortem would be carried out to determine the cause of death. “We are looking for at least three more people to help us in our investigations,” he added. It is learnt that police are looking for the male employer’s mother, who also stayed in the same house, the informer who found Mautik, and a former employer of Mautik. A 29-year-old woman was arrested on the same day Mautik was found and her husband surrendered to the police the following day. The woman would be remanded until Tuesday and the man until Wednesday. Mautik is believed to have worked in the house for the past two months and was locked in the toilet for two days before she was discovered. She did not have any valid travel documents when she was rescued. Dr Xavier said the Selangor state government expressed its deepest condolences to Mautik’s family and was prepared to help if her family needed help in sending the body home or if family members wanted to come to Malaysia to claim the body.

_________________
Never argue with a fool or he will drag you down to his level and beat you at it through sheer experience!

[NOV]

The abusers are said to be Malaysian Indians.
_________________
Never argue with a fool or he will drag you down to his level and beat you at it through sheer experience!

[app_engine]

Shocked and saddened

People are progressively getting more selfish and losing any traces of genuine love still left in humans.

[pavalamani pragasam]

Brutal, crass arrogance of the most vicious, despicable kind!
_________________
Eager to watch the trends of the world & to nurture in the youth who carry the future world on their shoulders a right sense of values.

[joe]

மனிதாபினாமற்ற பதர்கள்

[Roshan]

Barbaric !!

[NOV]

Face of a murderer (alleged)



http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/20091031100356/Article/index_html
_________________
Never argue with a fool or he will drag you down to his level and beat you at it through sheer experience!