THEIR names may be different, but their stories are heartbreakingly similar.

They are all tales of property sold, debts incurred and favours sought to raise money to secure a job in Malaysia.

However, once the agents are paid and the job is secured they find that it is not the land of milk and honey that they have sought, but one which leaves them in bondage and at the mercy of masters who neglect, abuse and enslave them.

K. Sathiyamoorthy's tale is a particularly painful one.

The 46-year-old Indian national came to Malaysia in 2004 to earn enough money to pay the wedding dowries of his three daughters.
He borrowed RM9,000 from loan sharks to pay his agent's fees and came to work in a glove factory.

In the first 14 months he was, by all accounts, quite happy even though he was only paid a basic salary of RM416 per month instead of the RM520 he had been promised in India.

Then a vat of acid tipped over and spilled the deadly corrosive liquid all over his lower body.

The accident left him not only severely scarred and in terrible pain, but also impotent.

He was hospitalised for 45 days.

When he returned for duty, it was only to find that he was unable to do heavy work due to his injuries.

Instead of sympathy or understanding, what Sathiyamoorthy got was a letter of termination and a flight ticket home.

He did not get a single sen in compensation for the injuries although his employment contract stated that he was given insurance coverage.

In another case, three Nepalese workers who arrived in 2005 found themselves on the receiving end of a beating and a sacking when they stood up for their rights.

The men had all borrowed money from relatives to pay the RM4,000 their agent demanded from each of them.

But they reasoned it was worth it because they were promised jobs in a shipping company that paid between RM1,500 and RM2,000 per month.

Instead, they ended up at a solid waste management company earning RM481 a month. And from that sum, RM150 was deducted every month for their employer to pay their levies.

They were made to live six-to-a-room in a small lot in the factory compound.

Even so, they decided to make the best of it and continued to work.

However, things came to a head in an unexpected way in May that year.

One of the men, Man Bahadur Budha Magar, had been given permission by his supervisor to have half a day off due to some personal emergency.

His employer saw him leaving the factory and immediately accosted him and told him not to come back if he left for the day.

When Man Bahadur insisted on leaving, his employer tore his punch card in his face and told him that he was fired.

The next day, two of his comrades, Kishore Kumar Kathariyatharu, 26, and Abash K.C., 23, went to see the employer to iron things out. Both men were instead slapped and sacked.

Mohammed Shakeel, an Indian national, also ended up a loser when he tried to stand up for himself.

When he, along with four other Indian workers, realised they were being cheated of their overtime, they lodged a complaint with the Labour Department in Subang Jaya.

However, days before their case was due to appear in court, his four co-workers were sacked and deported.

Mohammed Shakeel, 26, was the only one to escape deportation and is now here on a special pass while he fights his case.