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A Filipino household service worker endured three years of torture in the hands of her female employer.
“Almira” (not her real name), suffered horrific injuries as shown by the wounds, burns and scars on her body.
“My employer put a hot iron on my arms and back. I was also hit with steel pipes and a tennis racket. This was done to me practically everyday,” said Almira.
Even her ears were not spared from the torture. She explained, “A sharpened pencil and a key was inserted into my ears. The abuse only stopped when my ears bled.”
Almira said she was tortured and locked up by her female employer every day. Her male employer also maltreated her twice.
“I cried a lot. It seemed like they wouldn’t stop hurting me until they saw blood. Once my employers would see me bleeding from what they did, they would push me away and order me to take a bath,” she recounted.
There were times when she was deprived of food and was even called a “dog” by her employer.
The 22-year-old Maguindanao native escaped last June 20. She sought help from the Philippine embassy. Almira is now under embassy custody.
For its part, the embassy vowed to provide assistance to Almira until she gets justice.
“This is really a great injustice and we will be exhausting all our legal remedies to give her justice. This includes filing a criminal complaint, a civil complaint for damages and also blacklisting of the employers so they won’t be allowed to have or employ Filipino household workers. We will also fully aid in her rehabilitation so we will subject her to counselling, debriefing and other psycho-social interventions,” said Vice Consul Atty. Shiena Tesorero.
The embassy also wants the agency that deployed Almira investigated.
“Why was she deployed in 2011 when she was merely 18 years old? She was clearly an underage worker and why was she not monitored by her agency and at the same why was she not repatriated after the end of her contract?” Tesorero asked.
Text: Maxxy Santiago, ABS-CBN Middle East News Bureau
This article has been re-published with permission from ABS-CBNnews.com.
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