WITH her heavily-lined face, frail figure and hunched back, she looks like just another sweet old grandmother.

But Linas (not her real name) is only 30.

She came to Malaysia in 2003 and worked every day for the next five years as a maid at a home in Rawang.

She would work from 6am to 11pm, doing all the chores. In all that time she was never paid a single sen.

After her two-year contract expired, Linas begged to be allowed to go home, but her employer forced her to stay on for three more years. "They never even let me contact my family in Indonesia."

Early last month, she again begged to be released, only to have her employer threaten to throw her into the jungle instead.

"I didn't know what else to do, so I grabbed a knife and threatened to slit my throat.

"My boss panicked and promised to let me go," she said when met at Tenaganita's office recently.

Her employer gave her RM1,000 and handed her to an agent who was supposed to help her get home.

The agent took her to Johor and told her to wait at a house before disappearing.

Things got even worse after that.The people at the house took her to the beach and told her to hide in the woods until 2am, when she would have to swim out to a waiting boat.

Nobody bothered asking if she could swim and Linas almost drowned while trying to reach the boat.

She lost her remaining bags. All she could do was buy a ticket to Kuala Lumpur and seek help with Tenaganita.