A 22-year-old Cambodian woman has accused a manager in Malaysia of torturing her in retribution for refusing to have sex with him and has demanded 20 million riel ($5,000) in compensation.

Chey Ort has alleged she was beaten with a metal pole, force-fed chilies and toilet water, viciously beaten in the mouth with brooms and shoes and starved by a man whose name she never learned at a Malaysian branch of Cambodian recruitment firm Top Manpower. She was sent by Top Manpower to the SK Service Centre in 2010.   

“He wanted me to sleep with him, but I said no. I cannot do like this. I was held captive for about two weeks,” she said.

She was then deployed by the SK Service Centre to work as a maid, but her troubles were far from over, immediately encountering abusive employers, Ort said.

After moving from one abusive household to another five times in six months, Ort said she finally escaped and took a job in a legitimate massage parlor, where she earned enough money in a year to get a bus the entire way back through Thailand to Cambodia.

Sam Chankea, co-ordinator of the rights group Adhoc in Kampong Chhnang province, said Ort also told him the manager at the SK Service Centre forced her to work 21 hours per day and beat her on the back with a metal pole.

Top Manpower is owned by former Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies President An Bunhak and has not been immune from abuse scandals.

“Please, the victim [should] file a complaint to the department of anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection or she can come directly to Top Manpower to make a complaint. We also want to know about the case,” Bunhak said yesterday.

A person who picked up the phone at SK Service Centre said she knew nothing about the alleged assaults and declined to give her name or comment further.

To contact the reporter on this story: Phak Seangly at [email protected]