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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/23/ri-worker-died-repeated-blows039.html RI worker died from `repeated blows' The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 07/23/2010 11:11 AM | National Sariah, 37, a female migrant worker from Indramayu regency, West Java, died in Kuwait after being beaten repeatedly with a blunt object, Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) forensics team announced Thursday. "We found many bruises on her body, particularly on the right side of her neck and chest. "The worst injury was in the back of her neck, and had caused bleeding in her brain stem that caused her death," forensics team chief Munim Idris said. The brain stem is the most vital organ in the body because it regulates multiple functions, including blood pressure, the respiratory system and the heartbeat, he said. Earlier, the team had received a report from Al Adan Hospital in Kuwait, stating that Sariah had died because her heart had stopped, her blood pressure had dropped, her respiratory system had failed, and her brain was bleeding. Sariah died at the Kuwait hospital on July 7, after surviving eight days in a coma. Her remains were returned to Indonesia and arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday. Sariah had begun working as a domestic helper in Kuwait at the end of 2008 under the facilitation of PT Zam-Zam Perwita, a migrant worker recruitment company. During her first year in Kuwait, she reportedly experienced poor treatment from her employer. Then, earlier this year, through the assistance of an agency, Sariah found a new employer. However, the treatment she received at the next employer was worse, getting paid for only for two months work in her seventh month of service. According to her son Agus Sumantri, Sariah had not contacted her family for the past month. In her last phone conversation, more than a month ago, she had complained about frequent cramping in her legs. However, she had not provided any explanation, he said. "My mother did not tell my family about the bad treatment she got from her employer. We heard from one of *Sariah's* fellow migrant workers that her employer often beat her," Agus said. At the end of June, Saniah, Sariah's friend, had told her family that she had been locked in a warehouse and not given food for four days, Agus said. Anis Hidayah from Migrant Care, an NGO providing advocacy for troubled migrant workers, said her team had made a verbal report about the forensic result to the Foreign Ministry, the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI). "We plan to ask for assistance from the government to undertake a legal process in Kuwait. We hope the autopsy result can be used as evidence to file a lawsuit against Sariah's employer," Anis said. Around 90 percent of cases where migrant workers in Middle Eastern countries have died were the result of similar circumstances: violence by employers. However, such cases have remained unaddressed because victims' families often have limited abilities to have autopsies conducted in Indonesia. That same day, the NGO was processing the case of another migrant worker who had died. Nurhayati, 40, of Cianjur, West Java, who had worked in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, had also died from alleged violence by her employer. However, Nurhayati's family would not allow an autopsy to be conducted. Meanwhile, an official at the Indonesian Consulate General in Dubai, Deddy Darussalam, said between April 24 and July 17, his office had returned 35 troubled female migrant workers to Indonesia. The consulate general was currently providing shelter to around 120 troubled workers in Dubai. The situation was inevitable because more workers came to Dubai with problems than those returning home, he said. "The migrant workers who run away from their employers come every day," he said as quoted by detik.com. (lnd)
