Woman beaten in failed escape

JAKARTA: Fadijah, 26, was beaten on Wednesday by two guards when she tried to escape the training house of a labor exporter on Jl. Tebet Utara, South Jakarta.

Hailing from Wonosobo, Central Java, Fadijah seized upon a narrow chance to escape at 7 a.m., when a staffer of the training house got back from shopping, opening the four-meter high gate.

However, guards of the migrant worker agency PT AAJ, Sugiarto and Rusimun, got to her and hit her on the back and face.

Angry residents took the guards and Fadijah to Tebet police station.

"She said she was tired of waiting for a promised job in Malaysia, and the agency had told her to pay Rp 2.5 million (US$280) if she wanted to go home," police chief Comr. Agus Irianto said, quoting Fadijah.

Tebet residents said that the gates of the training house were always closed and had often seen workers trying to escape by jumping from the third story of the house. They said they didn't know what happened next to such workers. --JP