The government will slap a lifetime ban o­n employers who physically abuse their foreign maids and suspend those who fail to pay their domestic helpers' salaries, a report said today.

Immigration Department Director-General Mohamad Jamal Kamdi was quoted as saying by The Star that abusive employees would be barred forever from hiring foreign maids.

Those who failed to pay their maids' salaries would be barred from employing them for o­ne to two years, and employers who emotionally and verbally abused their maids suspended for two to three years, he said.