By Daisy CL Mandap
 |
| Kartika is seeking about $800k in compensation from her torturers |
Kartika is back, and this time, she wants her former employers described as “cruel” and “vicious” by a judge nine years ago, be made to pay her damages for torturing her over a two-year period.
The Indonesian domestic worker will appear in District Court tomorrow, Thursday, at the start of the hearing of a civil case she filed against her former empoyers, Tai Chi-wai and his wife, Catherine Au Yuk-shan.
According to Edwina Antonio of the
 |
| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
A group representing the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body will stage a 30-minute picket outside court to show support for Kartika and demand an end to what they call as the government’s discriminatory policies toward migrant domestic workers.
Tai, now 51, was sentenced to three years and three months in prison on Sept 18, 2013, after being convicted of two counts of wounding Kartika Puspitasari, now 39, using his fists on one occasion, and a bicycle chain on the other.
Au, now 50, who inflicted most of the injuries on the helper, was jailed for five and a half years on six charges of wounding and assault occasioning bodily harm. Au was found to have tortured the maid with a hot iron, a paper cutter, bicycle chains, a hanger and shoe.
 |
| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
The offences took place at the couple’s residence at Serenity Court in Taipo between October 2010 and October 2012.
But the accused were acquitted of false imprisonment – a
charge laid based on Kartika’s claim that she was made to wear a diaper, then
tied to a chair without food and water, while the couple and their three young
children went on a holiday to
Judge So Wai-tak said this claim was exaggerated and unbelievable. So also said an allegation that Au had forced Kartika to wear children’s clothes that exposed her breasts was “doubtful.”
 |
This was despite the testimony of a caretaker for the building where the couple lived, that he saw Kartika wearing ill-fitting clothes and looking dirty the few times she was allowed to leave the house in the company of either accused.
However, the judge dismissed the couple’s defense that Kartika’s wounds were self-inflicted, and were made to extract money from them.
A doctor at the trial said Kartika had 45 scars that were about six months to just a week old, and could have only been caused by another person.
 |
| Press for details |
He also said there were multiple linear scars on the maid’s legs and wrists that were consistent with her claim that she had been bound with cable.
Some of the wounds also matched Kartika’s claim of being scalded with a hot iron.
In her testimony, Kartika said she was not paid a salary during the two years that she had worked for the couple, and was not given any day off. They also made her sleep in the kitchen or toilet.
 |
| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Shortly after she worked for them, they threw away all the
clothes that she had brought from
Au also allegedly used threats to stop her telling anyone about her work condition. She was not able to seek help because there was no landline in the house, and the couple used only mobile phones.
Kartika managed to flee her tormentors's house on Oct. 9, 2012, after Tai had punched her in the mouth for eating without his permission, and threatened to knock off all her teeth. Fellow Indonesians she met on the street rescued her.
|
 |
.jpg)
