Malaysian authorities have freed over 100 foreign women believed to have been forced to live under oppressive conditions while working as maids for a local agency in the port city of Klang, 35km East of Kuala Lumpur.

This is according to Filipino state news agency PNA, which notes that the women included 95 Indonesians, six Filipinos and four Cambodians.

All had been promised other jobs but ended up working as maids, being taken to a job every morning and picked up later. They were returned, only to be locked in a building and not allowed to leave.

They held social visit passes and had not been paid for the last six months. They face deportation, while the police are searching for the owner of the agency, believed to be a local, PNA says.