Hong Kong-bound domestic workers are being held in prison-like conditions in Indonesia - often locked away from the outside world for months on end - as they are trained up and taught Cantonese in preparation for jobs in the city.
Advocacy groups say that escape attempts from scores of such training facilities in and around Jakarta are frequent due to what they claim are squalid living conditions and physical and sexual abuse. They argue the practice could make the movement of the women into jobs here tantamount to human-trafficking.
Indonesian government officials and some employment agencies in Hong Kong say they are aware of the confinement but say it is for the helpers' own good and that they are doing their best to put an end to substandard conditions and prevent abuse.
Roostiawati, the Indonesian Manpower and Transmigration Department's director for the placement and protection of migrant workers, blamed the women's lack of education for their detention.
'During training, most of the prospective domestic helpers come from faraway villages. They are really uneducated. Can you imagine if every agency allowed them the freedom to visit their families? The distance to their villages is quite far. If they had a higher level of education which allowed them not to do domestic work, they would be free.'
Carla June Natan, co-ordinator of the Urban Community Mission in Jakarta, an NGO serving Indonesia's migrant labour force, says the fact escape attempts take place shows the seriousness of the situation.