A 21-year-old woman has been rescued from a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok's Phasi Charoen district after allegedly being treated like a slave by the owner who the woman claims abused and tortured her for a year.
The victim claimed the owner splashed boiling water on her, burned her with a gas torch, tied her neck with wire until she could not breathe, cut her skin and lips with a knife, and burned her genitals.
"I begged [the restaurant owner] not to hurt me but she told me that she had to do it because some customers had made complaints," she told the police.
"I was so depressed that I thought about taking my own life. Some customers asked me what had I done with my body. I had to lie and say I had been involved in an accident because the owner told me not to tell anyone."
Ekkapop Laungprasert, founder of the Sai Mai Tong Rot Facebook page and adviser to the Interior Minister, helped the victim -- whose name is being withheld -- file a report with deputy national police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn yesterday.
The woman said she started working at the restaurant when she was 16. She quit but returned a year later after becoming pregnant. The woman said the owner also took her child away and that she hasn't seen her child for two years, because she has never been paid for her work.
According to her statement, the restaurant owner forced her to live in the kitchen and fed her just one meal a day -- an egg with rice.
The woman said she had tried to contact the police but her employer said she is well acquainted with senior police officers.