2007 05: Housewife has had enough of physical abuse and bullying

The Star online. News. Nation. Saturday May 5, 2007

KUALA LUMPUR: Watching video footage of her husband having sex with their Indonesian maid was the last straw for a 36-year-old housewife in Alor Star.

She ran away from her home and managed to get to Kuala Lumpur where she sought help from the Cheras MCA Division Service Centre director Dr Jeffrey Goh Sim Ik.

During a press conference yesterday, she revealed the mental and physical anguish she suffered during the past few years. She had been abused by her ganja-smoking husband; yet she endured the pain for the sake of her two children.

Things took a turn for the worse recently when her unemployed husband started taking pictures and video clips of himself having sex with her and the Indonesian maid.

What sickened the housewife even more was that her father-in-law took photographs of her and her husband having sex.

“My husband would watch pornographic movies in front of our two children, who are 11 and five.

“He would beat me up after smoking ganja. He would try to strangle me or drag me around by holding on to my hair. I cannot stand it any longer,” the tearful woman said, adding that she had attempted suicide several times.

She said her husband once told her that he was only trying to discipline her.

“He said I did not have a good upbringing and he was only doing my parents a favour.

“Even my children could not stand the abuse. They told me to run away,” she sobbed.

The woman said the locals were afraid of her husband’s family as he was a powerful man in the community.

“My father-in-law is very influential there. I hope the police will take action and rescue my children,” she said.

Her husband, she said, had also demanded money from her mother to invest in a foreign maid employment agency.

“Once when he could not get money to buy air tickets to visit his Indonesian lover, he vented his anger on me.

“I was badly injured and could only hear my daughter crying and begging her father to stop,” she said.

Goh said he would forward the case to the attention of Women, Family and Community Development parliamentary secretary Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun.

“Maybe we can assist her to get legal advice for a divorce,” he said.