By
Daisy CL Mandap
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| Kartika -flanked by Lestari and Tellez - tears up as she recalls her nightmare from 12 years ago |
Her nightmare might have happened 12 years ago, but
Kartika still tears up whenever she recalls the two years of abuse and terror
inflicted on her by her former Hong Kong employers.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday after a half-day
hearing of the $1.2 million civil claim she filed against her torturers, Kartika
recalled how her family back in Indonesia had left her for dead after the
couple stopped her from contacting them.
That began a two-year ordeal that still leaves her
terrified, long after she had gone back home and her torturers, Catherine Au
and her husband, Tai Chi-wai, were imprisoned for their horrible misdeed.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Kartika, who has yet to receive any compensation despite
an insurance company paying its $350,000 share in the civil claim, said she was
“very tired” from having to wait for so long to secure justice.
But she was also happy to
see the people who have helped her get to where she is now, particularly
Cynthia Tellez, general manager of the Mission for Migrant Workers, who had
sought her out after she had gone back to Indonesia and convinced her to pursue a
civil claim.
There is also her fellow Indonesian,
migrant rights activist Eni Lestari, who has been communicating with her
regularly, and remains outraged that the Labour Tribunal had dismissed Kartika’s
claim for the two years she was not paid wages
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Asked what she planned to do with the
money that she now seeks, Kartika immediately said “I will use it to heal
myself.”
She said she needed money to get rid of some unsightly scars from the wounds inflicted on her by Au and Tai, and to get professional counseling.
But she
also plans to use some of it to secure the future of her three children and set
up a small business.
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| Migrant activists blame HK's 'discriminatory policies' for what happened to Kartika |
They then started
beating her up regularly with practically all that their hands could lay on, from
bicycle chain locks to clothes hangers and hot iron - and tied her to a chair in
the kitchen at night, or whenever they would leave the house.
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Kartika also said she was fed only three times a week with leftover congee from the hospital where her contractual employer Au, worked. She was allowed to bathe only once or twice a week – and only in public toilets.
Once, Au told her to cut her hair, and when she refused, Kartika said the employer used a cutter to slash her in several parts of her body.
“Almost every day my
employer also beat my head and back,” said Kartika.
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| Press for details |
She said the couple had threatened to kill her if she ran away.
Worse, she was never paid any salary, and was not allowed to leave the house except when accompanied by either of the accused
Sometime in 2011, the
family of five left Hong Kong for a vacation in Thailand for seven days, and
Kartika said the couple tied her to a chair dressed only in garbage bags and a
diaper, with a mask to cover her face.
She also claimed she was not given any food or water during that time, although the District Court judge who found the accused couple guilty of a total of six counts of wounding and assault, had dismissed this as an exaggeration.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
In October 2012,
Kartika managed to break free from being tied to a chair in the toilet, and
left her employer’s Tai Po home to seek help. Some fellow Indonesian migrant
workers she met on the street took her to the Indonesian Consulate General,
which helped her seek police help.
After Au was sentenced to five and-a-half years in jail, and Tai, to three years and three months, Kartika, aided by the Indonesian Consulate, went to the Labour Tribunal with a claim totalling $117,272 for her unpaid wages, annual leave, and severance pay.
However, the Tribunal rejected most of her claims and awarded her only about $5,000 in back wages. Kartika returned to Indonesia in 2014, virtually penniless.
Fortunately, she was introduced to Tellez before this, and the veteran migrants rights campaigner lost no time seeking out Kartika when she went to Central Java that same year to interview another abused Indonesian migrant worker, Erwiana Sulistyaningsih.
Lestari said that while they want the media and the public
to support Kartika’s quest for justice, they also
want it known that there are many other migrant workers like her who continue to suffer in silence.
For as long as the Hong Kong
government continues to turn a blind eye to the discriminatory policies that
make migrant workers susceptible to abuse and exploitation, Lestari said the
problems that led to the horrific fate of Kartika and Erwiana will not only remain, but fester.
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