In the wee hours of a December morning last year, four migrant Indonesian women tied a few bedsheets together and quietly climbed out the window from a third-floor apartment they were kept locked in.

They took this desperate action to escape their abusive employment agent, somewhere in Damansara.

The four women, aged between 26 and 42 years old, were new recruits from Central Java and Bali who were promised RM1,500 monthly salary for domestic work in Malaysia and travelled into the country between September and November in 2021 using approved MyTravelPasses.

Annisa, Dewi, Aulia and Budiwati (not their real names) eventually found refuge at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur's (KBRI) shelter.

Telling their story to Malaysiakini, they said they were...