She never got a day off, could not speak to neighbours, or call her family back home in Central Java.

Her misery started the day she joined Zubaidah Sanluan's household in January 2001. Zubaidah, 46, a clerk, was her second employer.

Miss Sukarti's job at the four-room Tampines flat was to wash, cook and clean for Zubaidah, her husband, Ali Kasmadi, 60, who works in the shipping industry, and their three daughters.

She was supposed to receive $280 a month. But each time she expected to be paid, she was told 'next month, next month'.

When the time came for her two-year contract to be renewed, she asked to go home but her employer refused.

'She pleaded with me to stay,' recalled Miss Sukarti. 'She promised to pay me, but she never did.'

Asked why she agreed to stay on not once but twice, she replied that she had grown close to her employer's three daughters, now aged 24, 21 and 15. Also, she claimed she was afraid of her quick-tempered employer.

Said Miss Sukarti: 'I had no friends, I was not allowed to talk to anyone, I had nobody's contact number.

'After a while, I lost interest in speaking to anyone and would just cry alone in the room with the youngest daughter. Maybe it was my fate that I was not paid my salary.'

Then, Zubaidah's eldest daughter got married and her son-in-law decided in February last year to tell the Indonesian embassy of the maid's plight. Miss Sukarti has since been staying at the embassy's quarters.

On Feb 11 this year, Zubaidah became the employer with the worst record of not paying her maid. She was also convicted of falsely declaring that she had been paying Miss Sukarti when she renewed the Indonesian's work permit in January.

She was fined $4,500 and barred from ever employing a maid again, said the Man- power Ministry yesterday. She could have been fined up to $5,000, jailed up to six months, or both.

Zubaidah owed Miss Sukarti $19,398 in all, which she paid in three instalments.

Miss Sukarti is going home to Pati, her village, where she intends to use the money to set up a shop.

Neighbours The Straits Times spoke to said they knew something was wrong with the maid.

One, who declined to be named, said Miss Sukarti was terrified of her employer.

'The maid would scurry into the flat whenever Zubaidah caught her talking to us. But once, she mentioned she had no money to buy anything and that she wanted to go home but could not,' she said.

She added that she could hear Zubaidah berating her maid from inside the flat.

Miss Sukarti claimed that Zubaidah was abusive, calling her names and shouting whenever she returned home from work unhappy.

But when she returned from shopping sprees, she would show off her buys.

'I wondered how she had money to go shopping, but none to pay my salary,' she said. 'I was so depressed I fell sick. The doctor told me to rest more and stop thinking too much. But he, my neighbours, everybody did not know the pain I went through.'

She did not lack food and clothes. Zubaidah's relatives passed down clothes to her. But she missed her family who thought she had gone missing when she failed to contact them.

'When I finally called them last year, they were so shocked I was still alive,' said Miss Sukarti.

arlina@sph.com.sg