Zin Mar Nwe case

Prior to her arrival in Singapore, Zin Mar Nwe, who was born and raised in Myanmar, was hired and trained to become a domestic maid, and she first came to Singapore on 5 January 2018. Even though her real age was 17, the agent responsible for Zin's employment registered her passport and changed her date of birth, claiming that Zin was 23 years old. In fact, the minimum age to work as a maid in Singapore was 23, and being six years younger, Zin would not have been eligible to become a maid by Singapore employment standards. This would be eventually uncovered during police investigations when Zin was arrested for murdering an elderly woman.[7]

After her arrival in Singapore, Zin began working for two Singaporean families (one after the other) between January and May 2018. On 10 May 2018, Zin was hired by an Indian-born financial controller who immigrated and settled in Singapore, and she began working for her employer, who lived at Choa Chu Kang with his wife and two teenage daughters.[8]

On 26 May 2018, sixteen days after Zin Mar Nwe started working for her third employer, her employer's 70-year-old mother-in-law travelled from India to Singapore to come live with her son-in-law and his kin for a month. During the period of her stay, the elderly Indian citizen allegedly abused the 17-year-old maid Zin Mar Nwe (who never suffered abuse from the other members of the household), hitting her (either with bare hands or other objects) and reprimanding her on several occasions whenever the maid did not perform up to expectations or cannot understand her instructions. On one occasion, while Zin was massaging the elderly woman, she used too much force and the woman slapped her. On another occasion, at the kitchen, Zin had turned on the stove wrongly, and accidentally caused the elderly woman to get her hand burned slightly, causing the woman to pull Zin's hands close to the fire. A third occasion was when Zin was cutting the older woman's toenails, the woman allegedly kicked her in the chest.[9][10]

On the morning of 25 June 2018, Zin Mar Nwe was alone at home with the elderly woman, who threatened to contact her agent and send her back to Myanmar.[11] Zin was emotionally triggered by the threat, especially since she incurred a debt of S$3,300 to come to Singapore to work. In a fit of anger, Zin grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed the woman multiple times while the elderly woman was watching television.[12][13]

The elderly victim, 70-year-old Mehrotra Shashi,[14] died as a result of acute haemorrhage resulted from the 26 stab wounds (some of which penetrated her heart and lungs) on her body. Three of the wounds were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.[15] The victim was pronounced dead at about 3.29pm after an neighbour (who heard the screams) discovered her body and the arrival of paramedics.[16][17] Police were also contacted to investigate the case, which was classified as murder, and a manhunt was set out to look for Zin who was their prime suspect. Evidence were also collected from the flat, which was cordoned for more than twelve hours.[18] Neighbours who interacted with the family were shocked to hear about the gruesome murder and stated that the family (who all lived here for at least 17 years) were generally friendly, and described the maid as a "timid" and small-sized person.[19]

Zin Mar Nwe, who escaped the flat with an EZ-Link card and some cash, wandered around Singapore after the stabbing, and she was arrested five hours later upon her arrival at the maid agency to retrieve her passport.[20][21] Zin was charged with murder two days later on 27 June 2018.[22][23] The case was extensively reported in the Indian media and Singaporean media, and other countries, due to the high-profile nature of the case.[24]

After the completion of the autopsy at the mortuary of the Health Sciences Authority, the victim's son-in-law retrieved the body for funeral preparations, and more than 30 relatives and friends were present at the victim's funeral at Mandai Crematorium.[25]

In the aftermath of her sentencing, the case of Zin Mar Nwe also shed light on the phenomenon of underaged maids being employed in Singapore despite the stringent background checks and regulations set to detect underaged maids, and it was found that most of these maids (most of them hailed from Myanmar) were told by their agents to lie about their ages to gain employment in Singapore. The Ministry of Manpower released their data which showed that from 2018 to 2022, the authorities detected around six underage foreign domestic workers per 10,000 such workers in Singapore during that period, in spite of the decline in the number of underage maids detected in the previous three years.[50][51]

Not only that, due to the high-profile nature of Zin’s case, observers who spoke to the national newspaper The Straits Times expressed that based on the situation of the foreign maids in Singapore (268,500 of them as of December 2022), many had faced significant stressors from the multiple responsibilities they need to fulfill, including household duties and meeting expectations of their employers, and it was especially so should it be taking care of the elderly or special needs children, or the maids being either not skilled enough or too young (since younger maids did not have sufficient maturity and lesser self-confidence than the older ones). First-time maids were also noted for having a lack of community bonds in a foreign country and not having friends to seek help or release their stress. Some maids may also found it difficult to adjust to moving from a rural living environment to an urban living environment, and the lack of family support, learning a new language and other factors also add to their emotional struggles, which was the case for Zin Mar Nwe, who had to travel alone from Myanmar to Singapore, where she worked with a salary of S$450 which her family placed total dependence upon.

It was further revealed by the same newspaper that since 2012, there have been 11 reported cases of maids found guilty of killing their employer or the employer's family member, including Zin herself. Seven of these maids were below the age of 25, and four were 18 years old or younger. According to Zin’s lawyer Christopher Bridges, many maids who suffered from mistreatment had to suppress their distress and emotions for fear of being sent back home, and for Zin, the threat of being sent back to Myanmar and incurring debts from her return, compounded by her financial woes and the abuse, had become the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, resulting in Zin overwhelmed with anger and thus murdered the 70-year-old victim.[52]

• Maid abuse
• Capital punishment in Singapore
• Life imprisonment in Singapore