105 locked-up foreign women rescued from Port Klang maid agency

PORT KLANG: Immigration officers rescued 105 foreign women found locked in a four-storey maid agency in Bandar Baru Klang here during a 7.47am raid on Saturday, said Amran Ahmad, Port Klang director of the Selangor Immigration Department.

The women, aged between 18 and 25 years, were locked up at level three and four of the premises, located above the maid agency.

"All the women - 95 Indonesians, 6 Filipinos and 4 Cambodians had only social visit passes and are believed to have entered the country in the last one to six months," he told reporters here.

Police arrested 12 people, including three local men, believed to be employees. The rest were women - five Indonesians, three Cambodians and a Filipino - who were believed to be supervisors of the rescued women, he said.

"Initial investigations showed that all the rescued women were promised other jobs but were duped. They ended up being maids and haven't received any salary for the past six months.

"Every morning, the women were taken in a van and delivered to various homes in the Klang Valley to do maid services, picked up again and locked into the four-storey premises. They were not allowed to leave," he said.

Amran said the women had been promised a monthly salary of RM700 but did not get it because, the agency told them, they would only begin receiving salaries after seven months.

While the agency was licensed and had been operating for five years, it was illegal for them employ people on social visit passes, without valid work permits, he said.

Whenever, the women questioned the employer about pay or living conditions, their meagre food ration was immediately cut further and some of them had to eat paper to stave off hunger pangs.

Amran said the agency owner was a Malaysian and police were looking for him to help in investigations. The women have been sent to a half-way house and would be deported.

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105 locked-up foreign women rescued from Port Klang maid agency