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Jakarta on Friday urged Malaysia to be more proactive in charging and prosecuting its citizens suspected of abusing Indonesian domestic helpers, saying that a failure to address the issue could hurt relations between the two countries.

“We have continued to advise the Malaysian government so that they have the same desire to solve these cases quickly and smoothly,” said Teuku Faizasyah, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He added that Malaysia had indicated its commitment to taking action against citizens who abused their Indonesian domestic workers.

The ministry’s statement follows the latest abuse case against an Indonesian domestic worker, Muntik binti Bani, 39, from Jember, East Java, who died on Monday at Ampuan Rahimah Hospital in Klang Selangor, Malaysia. She was taken to the hospital after a neighbor alerted police, who found her in a bathroom when they raided the family’s home on Oct. 20. When Muntik was rescued, she was so severely injured that she could not move her legs.

Widyarka Ryananta, the councilor for information, social and cultural affairs at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, said that when Ambassador Da’i Bachtiar visited Muntik last Friday in the hospital, her condition had already worsened and she was unable to communicate.

S. Subramaniam, Malaysia’s minister for manpower, recently promised that Muntik’s employers would be prosecuted and punished if found guilty. He said the Malaysian government would not tolerate any abuse of Indonesian migrant workers.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was quoted by presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal on Wednesday as saying that the recent death of Muntik was “a crime.”

“The Malaysian government is expected to take legal action soon against the suspects, take them to court and punish them according to Malaysian law,” Dino said.

Yudhoyono, he said, would visit Malaysia in the near future and would include the issue of migrant workers in discussions with Malaysian leaders.

Faizasyah said the Malaysian government had responded quickly to Muntik’s death and had issued a statement outlining its hope that this would be the last case of migrant worker abuse.

“Surely they do not want to have a tarnished image on an international level because of this case,” Faizasyah said.

The spokesman added that pressure would continue to be put on the Malaysian government to improve the protection and working conditions of Indonesians working in the country.

“Domestically, we will keep improving the recruitment and transfer process to ensure that domestic workers have the proper documents,” Faizasyah said.

He added that based on the ministry’s monitoring, illegal migrant workers were more prone to mistreatment by their employers.