AFTER suffering four months of abuse, she decided that enough was enough.
On 5 Jul 2007 at 6.20am, while her employer and his wife were asleep and his mother-in-law was in another room, Indonesian maid Susilawati Kusnata quietly climbed out of the kitchen window of the fifth-storey Pasir Ris flat.
Her hands trembling, she clutched the bamboo pole holders outside for balance, and stood on a narrow ledge outside the flat.
While holding the window frame, she inched her way along until she came to an air-conditioner compressor.
Miss Susilawati, 23, then gripped a narrow metal bar protruding from it and moved along the ledge.
At some places, the ledge was so narrow there was barely enough space to place her feet.
1. Ms Susilawati climbs out of the window of her
employer's flat 2. She inches along a narrow ledge, gripping aircon
and window sill 3. She swings into 5th-storey stairwell and takes
the lift, on L6, to the ground floor.
But she managed to keep her balance and shuffled along, eventually making her way to a stairway, where she climbed in.
She told The New Paper in Bahasa Indonesia: 'I did not look down because I was so frightened I would fall and die. It seemed like a long time, but I finally reached the stairway and climbed in.'
Yesterday, her employer's wife, housewife Loke Phooi Ling, 38, was jailed eight months and two weeks, while Loke's mother, Teng Chin Lian, 68, was jailed for four weeks.
After climbing into the stairway, Miss Susilawati walked up the stairs to the sixth storey.
There, she took the lift to the ground floor and walked for nearly 30 minutes until she reached a mosque, where she went in to rest.
When an ustaz (Muslim religious teacher) at the mosque asked her why she was there, she kept quiet at first.
Then he saw the bruises on her arms and asked if her employers had beaten her.
She said: 'I could not hold it back anymore and started to cry. The ustaz called some of his fellow teachers and they called the Indonesian Embassy.'
At the embassy, consular staff Ida Mustapa met Miss Susilawati and called the police.
The court was told that she had lost nearly 13kg in the four months that she worked for the family, her first employers since she came to Singapore in March 2007.
She said that the day before she made her desperate escape, she had used some toothpaste belonging to Kuah.
5. She then walks for nearly 30 minutes to a nearby mosque
When Loke found out, she confronted Miss Susilawati, who was cleaning the wall in the toilet. Loke then grabbed the maid by her hair and swung her around before banging her head against the toilet wall.
The maid ended up with multiple blood clots on her head, scalp and around her eyes.
On 3 Jul 2007, Loke was not satisfied with the maid's work and demonstrated how she should do the chores.
After that, Loke repeatedly stamped on the maid's feet when she was not happy with her work. A medical examination after her escape revealed that the upper parts of Miss Susilawati's feet were swollen and tender.
The Indonesian came to Singapore to work as a maid to earn money to support her grandmother.
After finishing high school, she worked as a maid in Jakarta before moving to Singapore.
Better pay
She started working for the Kuahs on 6 Mar 2007.
She said that the couple spoke to her in Malay and told her that her duties included washing the dishes, cooking meals, cleaning the flat, washing and ironing the clothes, and looking after their three daughters.
Her accommodation was a small room at the back of her employers' flat.
She said: 'For the first month, I slept on a thin mattress, but later I was told to sleep on the cold, hard floor with only a pillow.
'I woke up at 5am every day and did not stop working until 11pm. I had no days off but my employers occasionally took me with them on family trips.'
She said she was not allowed to use the telephone or write letters, and her meagre meals comprised only rice, boiled vegetables and water.
Occasionally, she was given only black coffee to drink with no sugar or milk.
During her first three weeks, she said Kuah and his family praised her work.
She said: 'Then they reduced my daily meals from three to just two. They started slapping me and punching me on the forehead.'
She said Kuah and Loke told her what they did were 'punishments' for her poor work performance.
Her 'transgressions', she said, were minor, such as not putting enough effort into doing her chores and forgetting to put the kettle on.
She said Loke and Teng beat her on her arms, legs and back with a wooden stick 'countless times' till she was close to fainting.
During the beatings, Miss Susilawati claimed the windows and doors were usually closed and she was told not to cry.
She said: 'I told them many times to stop as I felt like I was going to die, but they just told me not to die in their home. I could not tell my problems to anybody as I did not know anybody here, not even fellow maids.
'I did not even know there was an Indonesian embassy here.'
Steel wool
She said Loke once scrubbed her mouth with a piece of steel wool and poured strong stain remover on her legs. On another occasion, Loke poured detergent over her hand, causing blisters, she added.
She said: 'Justice has been served. The $5,000 is a large amount but it cannot replace the suffering I had to undergo.
'Now I will return to Indonesia and look for a job. Maybe later, I will leave to work overseas, but never again in Singapore.'
She is currently at the Indonesian embassy waiting for her paperwork to be completed.
