KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - SINCE last year, a Malaysian woman who preferred to be known only as Lim, has not only had her house vandalised but was also harassed by loan sharks looking for her missing husband.
Having reached a point where she feared for her life, Lim, 36, now wants a divorce to stop the Ah Long from harassing her.

'I am afraid for my son's life. I fear for my own life. I want to divorce him so the Ah Long will leave us alone,' she said at a press conference at the MCA Public Services and Complaints Department on Wednesday.

She said she did not realise the reason for her husband's disappearance seven months ago until she started receiving phone calls from the Ah Long asking for her 40-year-old husband's whereabouts.

'I stopped taking the calls because they disturbed me all the time. Even now, I do not pick up my telephone because I am afraid of them,' she said.

She was so afraid of being hounded by the loan sharks that she left her house with her four-year-old son in March.

She found her home vandalised when she returned the following month and again this month.

In her police report made last Friday, Lim said she believed her house had been vandalised by loan sharks.

The Ah Long had thrown paint at her house and the windows were smashed with stones, she said.

'My boss even made me stop work because they were harassing me at my work place,' she said.

Department head Datuk Michael Chong said there were 10 cases this year of women being terrorised by Ah Long after their husbands have left them.

He said out of these, eight women wanted to divorce their husbands. Mr Chong urged those being harassed by the Ah Long because of loans taken by other family members to come forward so that the MCA could help them file police reports and refer their cases to the authorities.

'Ah Long should go only after those who borrowed from them,' he added.

He said the department had received 249 complaints so far from those who had been harassed by loan sharks. -- The Star/ANN.