{{Malaysian court on Thursday sentenced a couple to 24 years in jail for starving their Cambodian maid to death, one of many such abuse cases straining ties between the country and its neighbours.}}<\/p>\n
Hardware store owners Soh Chew Tong, 44, and his wife Chin Chui Ling, 42, were found guilty of culpable homicide at a high court in the northern state of Penang, said prosecutor Tan Guat Cheng.<\/p>\n
The 24-year jail term is to run from the day of their arrest in April last year, shortly after their maid Mey Sichan was found dead by paramedics.<\/p>\n
She weighed just 26 kilograms and had bruises on her body.<\/p>\n
Police said she died from acute gastritis and ulcers likely caused by lack of food over a long period. <\/p>\n
The 23-year-old had been working for the family for eight months.<\/p>\n
The couple initially were charged with murder, which carries the death penalty in Malaysia. <\/p>\n
However, the charge was reduced to culpable homicide, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in jail, Tan said.<\/p>\n
Cases of abuse of domestic workers, who come from poorer regional countries such as Indonesia and Cambodia, have frequently surfaced in Malaysia. <\/p>\n
It is heavily dependent on foreigners as domestic helpers such locals shun the work.<\/p>\n
In response, Cambodia no longer sends its citizens as domestic workers to Malaysia, while Indonesia for years suspended sending maids.<\/p>\n
Malaysia has promised to improve their welfare and protection, including giving them a day off. <\/p>\n
But activists say the hundreds of thousands of women remain vulnerable to sexual abuse, overwork and exploitation.<\/p>\n
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{{Malaysian court on Thursday sentenced a couple to 24 years in jail for starving their Cambodian maid to death, one of many such abuse cases straining ties between the country and its neighbours.}} Hardware store owners Soh Chew Tong, 44, and his wife Chin Chui Ling, 42, were found guilty of culpable homicide at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7851"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7851"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}