Burmese teenager says she was left with fractured skull, broken back

A Burmese teenager working as a maid at an apartment in Huai Khwang district has filed a complaint with police, accusing her Thai employer of giving her such a severe beating that she suffered a fractured skull, a broken back and shattered ribs.

The 17-year-old Burmese-Karen woman told Wang Thonglang police yesterday that on January 2 her employer Ubonrat Orawongsu, 32, started pummelling her in the head and back with a heavy metal object because she was crying over being homesick. She was cudgelled unconscious, she said.

The teenager said Ubonrat the gave a taxi driver Bt20,000 to drive the severely battered Burmese maid to Siriraj Hospital. Out of that sum, Bt19,000 was to cover her medical expenses, she explained.

She had to remain hospitalised for almost two months, undergoing repeated operations for her shattered ribcage and severe head injuries. Her pate is now largely bald because of the sizeable metal plate inserted in her skull and a long thumb-thick scar left by an operation disfigures her left side and back.

The maid’s case came to the attention of the organisation called the Coalition to Fight Against Child Exploitation (FACE), which has taken her under its wings.

FACE official Orawan Wimolrangkarat said the young maid had been so severely traumatised by the constant battering and persistent abuse that she continued shaking and crying much of the time. She added that FACE had paid for the maid’s medical bills, which have by now amounted to some Bt400,000.

The young woman explained that back in Burma she had paid Bt12,000 in fees for the opportunity to come and work in Thailand. Prior to her beating, she had been in employment for four months with Ubonrat, but had not received any of her agreed monthly salary of Bt4,000, she insisted.

She said she had often been at the receiving end of her employer’s violent fury because Ubonrat considered her too sluggish in carrying out her household chores. “She would slap my face with a shoe or hit me with a hot pan,” the maid said.

Metropolitan Police Division 4 Commander Maj Gen Wittaya Kosiyasathit said police arrested Ubonrat Wednesday on charges of physical assault as well as sheltering and employing an illegal immigrant. Ubonrat has denied all the charges and posted a bail of Bt200,000.