Early Monday, October 28, a 25-year-old woman was found dead at the foot of a waterfall in Hong Kong. Her lover is accused of hitting her in the head before throwing her from a height.
Anger is brewing in Hong Kong after the death of Mevi Novitasari. On Sunday October 27, this young 25-year-old Indonesian woman, who worked as a domestic worker in Hong Kong, joined the man with whom she had a relationship, Jamie Chapman, a 34-year-old British man, at the end of the day, to go and admire a waterfall , Waterfall Bay. But the man returned alone from this walk and while he returned to find his wife and son, Mevi Novitasari was discovered dead at the foot of the waterfall with serious head injuries.
According to local media, Mevi Novitasari had arranged to meet her partner to end their relationship. The latter then allegedly hit her in the head with “a hard object” and threw her from the top of the waterfall, in which she drowned. Jamie Chapman was arrested and remanded in custody, with authorities accusing him of doing “many unreasonable things, including not contacting the police”. The man has not yet spoken.
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A spotlight on domestic workers
Beyond the emotion aroused by the death of Mevi Novitasari, this tragedy has reignited the anger of domestic workers in Hong Kong. The young Muslim woman had left her son and parents behind on the island of Java to come and work as a domestic servant, but her salary only allowed her to send “a few hundred pounds sterling per month to her family”. according to the “Daily Mail”, while a visa problem prevented her from returning home. “We were looking forward to his return home, but instead we received the news of his death,” lamented Mevi Novitasari’s mother.
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In protest, several dozen Indonesian workers demonstrated in a park in the area, demanding “justice for the Waterfall Bay victim” and raising funds for her family. At the same time, these women protested their working conditions, demanding 11 hours of rest per day (eight for sleeping, three for relaxing) and a limit of 13 hours of daily work, as well as more government protection.
Human rights groups have long argued that Hong Kong’s system leaves some 340,000 domestic workers vulnerable to exploitation. They are forced to live with their employer in a sometimes hostile environment, from which it can be difficult to escape, particularly for economic and visa issues.
