Last week, NST wrote on slavery in estates, citing the case of a family who escaped from one such estates. Then, MIC-owned YSS gave the following comments via its assistant director Vanita Ramany, who said YSS had brought cases to the police, but not enough attention was given:

She cited a case where an 18-year-old worker escaped from an estate in Bahau, Negri Sembilan, in March after enduring years of abuse.

“The girl sought our help and we referred her to the Bahau police. But till now, nothing has been done.

“She is currently under the care of a welfare home,” said Vanita, who added that she had contacted Negri Sembilan police chief Datuk Osman Salleh over the matter.

While Osman was helpful, she said some policemen did not share his enthusiasm.

Vanita also referred to one case in Malacca which was reported to the police. But the victim was arrested for armed robbery when he showed the scars on his body.

“The next day, he was released after the police realised they had made a mistake.”

Vanita said there were also six other estate workers who had sought help but they never “showed up at our office again”.

More recently, the YSS, MIC and Negeri Sembilan police had a meeting to further discuss this problem:

Police met representatives of several bodies recently to discuss how they could work together to resolve the problem of “slavery” in several estates in the country. They included the Welfare and Manpower Departments, MIC’s Yayasan Strategik Social (YSS) and state executive councillor for estate affairs V.S. Mogan.

State police chief Datuk Osman Salleh said they were committed in their efforts to put an end to such incidents and would work closely with the various bodies and political parties concerned.

“We want to get to the root of the problem and resolve it once and for all. We have yet to establish the extent of the problem as we were unable to get sufficient information from the few alleged victims who came forward.”
Osman said their investigations revealed that some such alleged cases were linked to bad debts between the workers and their employers, which carried on from one generation to another.

“These cases of bad debts are prevalent in many estates and sometimes the next generation is made to work to pay off the earlier loan taken by the person’s father or even grandfather.

“However, we are determined to get to the bottom of this and put an end to such things.

“We are in the process of investigating how these debts originated and how they grew to such enormous amounts. We are also hoping that someone from the estates allegedly involved will come forward to help us.”

He said the recent call by the government for all estates to register their workers would be a great help to the police and Manpower Department as it would enable them to keep track of any untoward activities in estates.

From 2005 till now, he said police had received five reports on estate slavery, of which three had been investigated and the papers handed over to the deputy public prosecutor.

“However, these three cases were marked as NFA (no further action) after the DPP was unable to find sufficient evidence to prosecute.

“As for the two other cases, they are still under investigation.”

On the meeting with YSS and Mogan, he said the MIC had expressed its appreciation to the police for their co-operation in investigating such cases.

“The YSS and state MIC leaders are working closely with us. We assure you that such cases of slavery in estates will be a thing of the past.

“We will continue to hold regular meetings with the agencies and bodies concerned and together we will resolve this problem.”