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SINGAPORE – A domestic worker who could no longer tolerate her employer’s abuse fled her employer’s apartment and walked down 15 stories from the unit’s balcony.
The 24-year-old Indonesian victim’s employer was Nuur Audadi Yusoff, a Singtel employee deployed to support the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) Contact Center.
Nuur Audadi slapped Sulis Setoywati, spat at her, dragged her by her hair, and prodded her with various implements during the five months that the maid worked for her. After discovering that the maid intended to flee, Nuur Audadi closed the apartment door.
Nuur Audadi pleaded guilty to six of the 14 counts of willfully causing harm. The remaining charges and one count of committing harm were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Sulis arrived in Singapore in mid-2017 and worked for Nuur Audadi from December 1, 2017 to May 1, 2018. He was paid $ 580 a month.
In January 2018, Nuur Audadi’s daughter cried one day after midnight. When she checked on her daughter, she noticed that the maid had forgotten to apply baby ointment to her daughter’s stomach.
Nuur Audadi asked Sulis why he hadn’t done it before spitting and slapping the assistant twice. He continued to scold the maid, who remained in shock.
After some cases of such abuse, Sulis wept and requested a transfer, but agreed to continue working for Nuur Audadi when the latter promised not to beat her again. Sulis also needed the salary to support her son at home.
On April 11, 2018, Nuur Audadi took Sulis to the MOM for a report on his former employer, who still owed him his salary. Sulis was grateful and believed that Nuur Audadi did not “differentiate her by being a maid” at times, the prosecution said.
However, things continued to go downhill for Sulis starting in April.
Multiple attacks led to a desperate escape
That month, Nuur Audadi attacked Sulis, on the neck, with a bunch of house keys. She told Sulis that even if she was crying, the door was locked and no one would help her.
When the maid did not clean a motorcycle and a helmet that belonged to Nuur Audadi’s husband as instructed, the latter used an umbrella to hit the maid on the head and push her stomach several times. In fact, Sulis had not been able to leave the unit to clean the motorcycle because he had forgotten to ask Nuur Audadi for the keys to the house. However, Nuur Audadi felt that the maid was simply making excuses.
On April 21, 2018, Nuur Audadi discovered that Sulis had a mobile phone and reviewed personal conversations and photos of the maid. He found some photos of his children uploaded by Sulis on Facebook.
Sulis had done it because he treated children as if they were his own. However, Nuur Audadi got upset and slapped the maid. Then he threw the phone on the ground and broke it. Sulis’s face bled and she cried.
Even after Nuur Audadi confiscated the mobile phone, he continued slapping Sulis and pulling his hair almost daily for a week.
At the end of that week, Sulis told Nuur Audadi that she had asked the agent for a transfer, and the agent slapped her again, saying that he had paid a lot of money for her.
Around April 29, 2018, Sulis managed to recover his mobile phone and hid it somewhere in the apartment because he wanted to call the agency to request a transfer. When Nuur Audadi realized that he no longer had Sulis’s phone, he questioned the maid, who denied taking the phone. In anger, Nuur Audadi used a comb and shoved Sulis on his forehead with force. She also slapped the assistant and pulled his hair. She told Sulis to find the phone until midnight that day.
That night, Nuur Audadi made Sulis sleep in the living room, closing her bedroom door and the front door to prevent her from fleeing.
The next day, while Sulis was tidying up Nuur Audadi’s bed, the skipper pulled the maid’s hair and kicked her on the head several times. She was upset that she couldn’t find her ring and accused Sulis of being jealous of her jewelry.
That night, Nuur Audadi noticed that the maid’s hair was greasy and dragged her through her hair into the kitchen bathroom and sprinkled it with debris. Then he told the maid to bathe.
While Sulis was preparing milk for the children that night, Nuur Audadi called her a prostitute and accused her of flirting with her husband.
“He asked the victim if her private parts were itching and if she wanted to seduce her husband. Without understanding the defendant and having misheard, the victim replied, ‘Yes ma’am,’ ”Deputy Prosecutor Chong Kee En told the court.
Furious, Nuur Audadi took a broom from the living room and hit Sulis on the back of the head and back several times, causing more bruises.
At approximately 2 a.m., Sulis decided to escape. When the front door was closed, he exited the unit from the balcony. From balcony to balcony, he descended 15 levels to the ground floor.
He then left and, under the guidance of his agent, filed a police report.
DPP Chong asked for more than 10 months in prison for Nuur Audadi, who will be sentenced on November 18.
A charge of willfully causing harm carries a jail term of up to two years and / or a fine of up to $ 5,000. As Nuur Audadi is an employer who caused harm to a servant under his charge, his punishment can increase up to one and a half times.
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