PUTRAJAYA: A housewife was sentenced by the Court of Appeal here Wednesday to one year in jail for trafficking two foreign maids and exploiting them by making them work in her house-cleaning business without paying them.
This was after Chong Chon Lang, 60, lost her appeal to set aside her conviction for the offence.
However, the Court of Appeal bench comprising Justices Datuk Hanipah Farikullah, Datuk See Mee Chun and Datuk Azman Abdullah allowed Chong’s appeal to reduce her jail sentence from 12 years imprisonment to 12 months jail term.
She said the 12 years imprisonment term meted out by the Sessions Court on Chong was manifestly excessive and the court also take into account of her age.
Meanwhile, the court acquitted and discharged her husband Low Kee Pat, 62, of the same charges after ruling that he was not involved in the exploitation of the women who were Indonesian and Cambodian nationals.
As for Chong, Justice Hanipah, who delivered the court’s decision, said the overall evidence showed that she (Chong) made use of her two maids to provide cleaning services to other people’s houses without paying them.
On Jan 10, 2019, the Sessions Court found the couple guilty of exploiting a Cambodian woman, then aged 28, at a house in Taman Rawang Perdana, Rawang between May 13, 2010 and July 14, 2016 and the Indonesian maid, who was 30 years old then, in the same house between March 2015 and July 14, 2016.
Both Chong and Low, a former contractor, were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for each charge to run concurrently. They appealed to the High Court but they lost their appeal which was dismissed on May 29, 2020.
In Wednesday’s proceeding, the couple’s lawyer Sreekant Pillai argued that the prosecution failed to prove the exploitation charges.
He said his clients went through an agent to get the maids to work for them as domestic maids legally, adding that they were treated well and were paid salaries.
He said if the two maids were brought to clean just one or two other houses, it did not fall within the definition of exploitation and forced labour under Section 2 of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom) 2007.
He said the charges against his clients should not be under Atipsom but under the Immigration Act or under the Penal Code where the punishment is lower.
Deputy public prosecutor Aznee Salmie Ahmad said under the terms of employment, the two women were only supposed to work at the couple’s house but instead they were forced to clean other houses.
She said the wife collected the money for the cleaning services and the maids did not receive any payment for the work.
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