Killing of Muawanatul Chasanah

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Muawanatul Chasanah
Born
Indonesia
Died2 December 2001
Bedok Reservoir
Cause of deathPeritonitis due to ruptured stomach
OccupationMaid
Employer
  • Ng Hua Chye
  • Tan Chai Hong
Known forher killing

On 2 December 2001, a 19-year-old maid and Indonesian national, Muawanatul Chasanah, was found beaten to death in a house by the Bedok Reservoir, Singapore.

Her killer was Ng Hua Chye, a tour guide and Chasanah's employer. Ng's wife, Tan Chai Hong, was also discovered to be involved. Both were arrested and charged in connection to the maid's death.[1][2] The outcome of the case was Ng being sentenced to a total of 18 years and six months' imprisonment with 12 strokes of the cane, while Ng's wife, who did not take part in the killing, was instead given a jail term of nine months for maid abuse and failing to make a police report on her husband's offences.[3]

Employment and abuse[]

In 2000, Chasanah, then 17 years old, travelled from Indonesia to Singapore to work as a maid. After she arrived in Singapore, she was employed by 47-year-old Ng Hua Chye and his wife, 30-year-old Tan Chai Hong (also known as Rainbow Tan).[4] The employers also had a daughter and a son.[5] Her first day of work began on 3 August 2000.[6]

Abuse[]

During her 9-month employment, Chasanah was subjected to a series of abuses by Ng and Tan. This abuse occurred at both locations where she worked: Ng's Chai Chee house and his sister's Bedok Reservoir house.[7] Each time she displeased Ng, he repeatedly punched her, beat her with both a cane and a hammer, dumped boiling water on her, and burned her with the ends of cigarettes. In one instance, after she drank his infant daughter's apple juice, Ng caned her until her face swelled up.[7]

Aside from physical abuse, she was also starved, most of her meals consisting of packets of instant noodles. When she began her job, she weighed 50 kg. On the day of her death, her weight had dropped to 35 kg.[8]

Ng was also highly suspicious of Chasanah, claiming she wanted to "slip powders, herbs, and papers with Arabic writings" into the family's meals. He also claimed this would make them "obey her".[4]

In November 2001, Tan Chai Hong grabbed Muawanatul's breasts after she failed to properly bathe her daughter.[2]

Death[]

On 1 December 2001, Chasanah was working in the home of Ng's sister. Ng accused the maid of stealing leftover porridge from his young daughter, later stating she was going to use the food to "cast a spell".[4] He punched her in the face, then kicked her in the stomach so hard that it ruptured.[9][10] She vomited and fainted in the kitchen, afflicted by severe stomach pain.[7]

The following day, Ng stepped into the local police station, confessing to severely abusing her and kicking her in the stomach the previous day; he also expressed his fear that she may die. Paramedics were dispatched to Ng's flat, where they pronounced Chasanah dead on the scene.[11] She was found in a vomit-stained T-shirt and had a distended stomach. The autopsy reported that her body was covered in sores from what appeared to be an attack with the back of a hammer. Both her back and her neck were discoloured from an apparent scalding.[8] An autopsy report revealed that the maid had over 200 scars on her body.[12] Her cause of death was determined to be peritonitis that developed when her stomach ruptured.[13]

Arrest and sentencing[]

After the discovery of Chasanah's body, Ng, who surrendered himself at a police station, was arrested immediately. Originally charged with murder and facing the death penalty, he plead guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, after Ng's lawyer Subhas Anandan made a plea bargain with the prosecution to reduce the murder charge since he voluntarily surrendered himself to the police before they arrested him. Ng also pleaded guilty to four out of seven charges of voluntarily causing hurt to the maid. The maximum penalty for manslaughter in Singapore was life imprisonment.

On 19 July 2002, Judicial Commissioner Choo Han Teck sentenced him to 10 years in prison and ordered him to be caned 6 times for killing Chasanah. For the four maid abuse charges he was convicted of; he received an additional eight years and six months in prison and another six strokes of the cane, making it a total of 18 years and six months' imprisonment. His sentence was the highest a maid abuser had received up to that point.[7]

Tan Chai Hong was also arrested. On 19 February 2003, magistrate Alvin Koh sentenced her to nine months’ prison time for grabbing and squeezing the maid's breasts, as well as not reporting her husband to the authorities after he dumped hot water on Chasanah. While sentencing Tan, Koh remarked about the former offence: "this vicious attack which you inflicted on her breasts revealed your latent disregard for her dignity as a human being and as a woman."[2] However, Tan was granted a bail of S$5000 (US$3,706) and was subsequently released after paying the money.[2]

Reactions[]

Government response[]

Following Chasanah's death, the Indonesian government froze new foreign domestic worker contracts for a month in order to review the system.[14]

Public response[]

A neighbour of Ng, a man named Mr Neo, commented on Chasanah's abuse and death, stating: "Even if I knew, I wouldn’t have called the police, it’s not my business. He can do what he wants, that’s his problem." In November 2002, this remark caused a group of Singaporeans to form an advocacy group called Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), hoping to prevent any more acts of abuse against foreign domestic workers.[15]

In addition, Singaporean authorities believe that the publicity surrounding her death has assisted in reducing the number of reported maid abuse cases from 157 in 1997 to 43 in 2002.[14] The case was also re-enacted by Mediacorp's crime show True Files in 2003.[3]

Ng's lawyer Subhas Anandan also wrote about the case in his memoir. He said he was personally feeling repulsed at the extent of abuse suffered by the victim but he had to suppress his disgust to maintain a professional mind while managing his client's case. He also wondered how did Ng, a father who dearly loved his children, would behave in such a barbarian way towards someone else's beloved daughter.[6]

The case was recalled nearly twenty years later when another convicted maid abuser Gaiyathiri Murugayan, who murdered her Myanmar maid Piang Ngaih Don in 2016 and also abused her grievously, was sentenced to a much longer imprisonment term of 30 years for culpable homicide and assault on 22 June 2021, which reportedly surpassed that of Ng Hua Chye, who was released at this point of time, as the longest sentence ever meted out to a maid abuser in Singapore. Gaiyathiri, who was initially charged with murder, was also assisted by her 62-year-old mother Prema Naraynasamy, who also faced allegations of murdering and abusing the maid, and her husband Kevin Chelvam, who was accused of maid abuse and removing the evidence of the abuse.[16]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Singapore man gets 18 and half years in jail for maid abuse". Asian Economic News. 22 July 2002. Retrieved 4 July 2021 – via The Free Library.
  2. ^ a b c d "Woman jailed nine months for maid abuse". The Star. 21 February 2003. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  3. ^ a b "True Files S2 Ep 12 Maid Abused To Death". meWATCH. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  4. ^ a b c "'Spells', torture and death". TODAY. 19 July 2002. p. 4. Retrieved 7 July 2021 – via eresources.nlb.gov.sg.
  5. ^ "Maid torturer gets 18 years in jail". TODAY. 20 July 2002. p. 5. Retrieved 7 July 2021 – via eresources.nlb.gov.sg.
  6. ^ a b Anandan, Subhas (15 June 2015). The Best I Could. Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd. ISBN 978-981-4677-88-2.
  7. ^ a b c d "Judicial caning in Singapore, July 2002 - CORPUN ARCHIVE sgj00207". The Straits Times. 20 July 2002. Retrieved 6 July 2021 – via corpun.com.
  8. ^ a b Anggraeni, Dewi (2006). Dreamseekers: Indonesian Women as Domestic Workers in Asia. Equinox Publishing. ISBN 978-979-3780-28-3.
  9. ^ "18 years for man who killed maid". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  10. ^ "Plight of the maid: report lifts lid on global suffering". The Independent. 1 April 2009. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  11. ^ Han Teck, Choo (19 July 2002). "Public Prosecutor v Ng Hua Chye [2002] SGHC 154" (PDF).
  12. ^ "Hell's kitchen for Singapore maids". The Age. 24 July 2002. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  13. ^ "Asians Oppose U.S. Attack on Iraq; Foreign Workers' Treatment in Israel, Singapore". WRMEA. 7 November 2002. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  14. ^ a b Kammerer, Peter (25 February 2003). "Indonesia acts to protect its migrant workers". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  15. ^ Lyons, Lenore T. (1 October 2005). "Transient Workers Count Too? The intersection of citizenship and gender in Singapore's civil society" (PDF). Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  16. ^ "30 years' jail for woman who starved and tortured Myanmar maid to death". The Straits Times. 22 June 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
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