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By Judy H. Fitzpatrick
PHILIPSBURG--Having her passport taken away, being barred from leaving her place of employment, not being paid and having a huge debt-bondage are some of the assertions made by a middle-age Mumbai, India native who escaped from her employer's home in St. Johns earlier this month.
The woman Yenshin Chang, who said she was called a "bitch" and a "whore" by her employers, is now under the protection of a local organisation. She credits the hunch of an intuitive child for helping her to escape what she termed a horrific working experience.
Several local organisations including the Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) foundation which works closely with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and authorities are now helping the woman recover unpaid wages, get back her passport and return safely to her homeland.
The son of her employer, who asked that the name of the family's Front Street jewellery store be left out of the story and that only his initials B.K. be used, has denied the woman's claims and has accused her of trying to squeeze money out of the family. "We are the victims," he told The Daily Herald.
Police Force Judicial Department Head Denise Jacobs confirmed that the woman had filed a report on February 7 and that the matter had the "full attention" of authorities.
Spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office Rienk Mudd confirmed that the matter was being investigated and that the son had been interviewed.
Washington-based IOM Project Coordinator Chissey Muller, ATIP President Cassilda van der Neut and Safe Haven President Oldine Bryson-Pantophlet have condemned the incident, which Van der Neut said was a clear case of modern-day slavery.
Contact
Chang told The Daily Herald that she had first come into contact with the family (name provided) after reading an ad in a Mumbai paper in 2009 seeking domestic aid for an elderly woman in St. Maarten. She responded to the ad and was interviewed. She was told that she had to take care of an elderly woman for a monthly salary of 10,000 rupees (about US $200) per month, but she had doubts and did not follow up.
(St. Maarten's minimum wage currently stands at NAf. 7.96 per hour or NAf. 1,379 (US $766) per month for a 40-hour work week).
Chang said the family had kept calling her about the job and at one point had even promised to open a restaurant for her to work in. She had decided to give it a shot. Her plan was to save her earnings to make a down-payment on a home in India.
She was told that she needed a number of documents for her work permit to be processed and said she had been sent 22,000 rupees to look after the documents, which she said included police clearance and a medical certificate. "They told me that the papers won't be a problem, because the government is corrupt and they bribe the government and police in St. Maarten all the time."
She was later sent her landing permit and ticket and arrived in St. Maarten on December 7, 2010.
When she arrived, she was told that the woman she had to take care of had died the day before. She said she had then been asked to work as a maid at the family home and take care of another elderly matriarch in the family.
Chang said she had been subjected to unconscionable demands and had felt unwelcome from the beginning.
She said her passport had been taken days after her arrival and hadn't been returned despite her asking for it on two occasions. Up to the time of this newspaper's interview, she still did not have possession of her passport.
K. said Chang's passport had been taken for "immigration purposes" and had not been returned, because she was "a flight risk."
Chang said her request for a mobile phone had been denied and the family had placed a code on their home phone barring her from calling her family in India. She said she had also been denied Internet access.
She said she had not been allowed to leave the home, adding that the family had also complained about her cooking and cleaning habits and she had sometimes had to re-do meals three to four different times if they did not like the way it had been prepared. "I cried many times."
The woman said she had been asked to sign multiple documents as a condition of her employment. She showed this newspaper an employment contract indicating that she would be paid a salary equal to St. Maarten's minimum wage, but said she had been told that the amount she would actually be paid would be US $200. She said she was never paid.
Provisions are made in the law for employers to deduct NAf. 425 (US $236) from their employees' salaries for room and board. This means that if Chang had actually been paid the amount promised, she would have ended up owing her employer US $36 dollars, if the laws were applied.
Weeks into her stay, she requested to be returned to India, but said her employer had told her that she owed the family US $10,000 and that, once she paid it, she could leave. "A few days later, I asked him how long he would keep me here locked up if I didn't have the money," adding that the amount had by then been reduced to US $3,500.
She was called derogatory names and told that her mouth "was hot" when she protested and expressed her desire to leave. She said she had also been insulted about her marriage to a non-Indian. The woman said that, while she had been scared, she was not subservient and she occasionally "spoke for her rights."
A child in the neighbourhood who played in the area befriended her and it was through this child and her parent that Chang said she had managed to get in contact with a local organisation and had "escaped" the home earlier this month. "I felt like I found God. I was so happy," the mother of three said about leaving the home.
"She was trembling, shaking when we first saw her," a representative of the local organisation that aided Chang to leave said. "She was clearly in fear."
The St. Maartener who was instrumental in contacting the local organisation to help Chang told this newspaper that her first encounter with the woman had been very emotional. "She was crying a lot," she said. "The writing was on the wall and I was shocked that something like this is still happening. I remember her telling me that if we helped her she would be kissing my feet for life."
We are the victims
Chang's direct employer was contacted for an interview on Monday, but he was unavailable when this newspaper showed up for the appointment. His son K. later said he was willing to be interviewed.
In a prepared statement, K. said, "We understand the matter is with the Prosecutor's Office. We're not even sure if there is an investigation at the Prosecutor's Office. We have confidence in an objective investigation. If there is any indication from my visit, it is clear that she is abusing the system. We are the victims, not her."
Asked whether Chang was ever paid for her services, K. said she was indebted to them for "breaching her contract." He said she had been sent "a salary advance" of 22,000 rupees (abiou US $486) before coming to St. Maarten to "buy stuff for herself." Her ticket and other expenses such as room, board and taxes are now debts for breaching the contract. He declined to go into details of what these other expenses were, saying they were irrelevant. "If a worker completes their contract, they don't owe anything."
"This is not a vacation where you just take a trip, just to come for a few days to see what the island was like and return." He said too that Chang had hardly done any work around the house and his father had "wanted her gone" and had notified immigration about this. The day Chang "disappeared" from the home, it was reported to the police, he said.
He showed this newspaper a written document that he said Chang had signed, in which she admitted to being lazy and a bad cook, among other things. Asked who had typed the document, K. said Chang had written it by hand and it had been typed out, but he couldn't show this newspaper the purported handwritten version or prove that she had indeed written it.
The IOM official told this newspaper that people in situations like Chang's "can be forced to sign documents against their will. Also, people can commit to terms and conditions in employment contracts that, unbeknownst to them, actually violate the basic labour laws of the other country ? in this case St. Maarten's," she said, adding that "deceit was used to secure the commitment; it appears as though they agreed to the contract without force."
K. also denied that Chang had been kept against her will, saying that she had had "access to the gates and the keys."
K. said his father had notified authorities in January that Chang "was going to leave. He declined to go into any further details on the matter with this newspaper. "If I have to get a lawyer, I will get one, but there is no reason to. She broke the contract."
Full attention
Jacobs said the matter had the "full attention" of the police. She said it was not legal for someone's passport and freedom to be "taken away" and for someone to be placed in "prison-like situations." She said figures on domestic servitude in St. Maarten were not available and local authorities in collaboration with the Police Force of the Netherlands were currently conducting research into how prevalent this and other illegal practices were.
"In St. Maarten it is indeed a public secret and whenever there is illegality in a country these things can happen [...] especially people from abroad are used."
Prevalence
In recent years there have been several cases of primarily Indian employees who flee their employers' places of work alleging slave-like treatment, including being paid low wages and living in substandard conditions.
The IOM official said that, although there were no reliable statistics, it was thought that trafficking for the purpose of forced labour ? in this case as a domestic servant ? was quite prevalent in the Caribbean. "One of the challenges with identifying persons who were trafficked for domestic servitude is that often they work inside a home, which is private property and thus not accessible to the public. Therefore these victims often have very little access to neighbours and the surrounding community. They are often incredibly dependent on the employer/home owner for food, clothing, shelter and work permit sponsorship, in addition to wages.
"Additionally, it is hard for outsiders looking in to determine what the true situation is, because on the surface it can appear to be a live-in domestic worker, who works really hard and seems grateful for the opportunity to work," Muller said.
Nationals of India constitute the sixth largest bloc of immigrants legally residing in St. Maarten, home to 104 different nationalities.
International assistance
In St. Lucia at the time of the interview, Muller told this newspaper that immediate assistance for Chang might be to help to coordinate her voluntary return in areas such as airport transit time, reception in India and transportation from the airport to her home community. "IOM would also work with Ms. Chang to ensure that her safety is protected to the extent possible. For the longer term, IOM can work with Ms. Chang to develop a reintegration plan. In her case, she's already expressed interest developing a particular skill to earn an income, and IOM could help to arrange for her to complete the skills certificate course."
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