Dubai: Residents are being urged to choose their maids carefully and treat them humanely if they want to ensure they don’t turn on them.
The advice comes after an Ethiopian maid confessed last week to attempting to murder her Emirati sponsor’s three children after she refused to cancel her visa and send her home. The maid is alleged to have stabbed the children and poured boiling water over them as they slept.
There is a significant Ethiopian population in the UAE — close to 200,000 and many are domestic workers. The Ethiopian Consul-General urges people to “treat your maid as a human being not as a machine.”
“Families in the UAE should not mistreat their housemaids as this could push them to commit crime or hurt their children,” Ethiopian Consul-General to the UAE, Yibeltal Aemero Alemu, said.
“The sponsor should be educated with regards to the maid’s culture and religion and the housemaid should also be familiarised with her new environment. From our side, we are doing our best, in addition to the church’s efforts, to educate our people,” he said.
Alemu said that if a housemaid asks her sponsor to allow her to travel home she should not be stopped.
“Mistreatment is the main cause of most crimes by domestic workers,” he said.
He said the latest spate of violent crimes by domestic workers in the Gulf was mainly due to mistreatment. Regarding the most recent case Alemu said it was a tragic incident.
If a sponsor wants to send their housemaid to jail, they may accuse them of a crime they have not committed, he said.
He added Ethiopians are generally peaceful and kind people if treated well and are proud of their culture.
Every day the Ethiopian office in Dubai receives many complaints from Ethiopian domestic workers related to abuse, harassment and rape, he said. He said many Ethiopian domestic workers were in the country illegally.
“There is cooperation between both the UAE government and the Ethiopian government, we are trying to fight illegal recruitment and human trafficking. So we are making a concerted effort and the UAE government is making a huge effort, especially fighting human trafficking,” Alemu said.
He added he appreciated Dubai Police’s efforts in solving crime quickly.
A Dubai court recently upheld a 15-year jail term for a woman who tortured her Ethiopian maid to death by forcing her to drink pesticide,
“If the housemaid is not qualified or behaves abnormally they should either send her back home or report the issue to the police or to the consulate,” he said.
Alemu said that recruitment agencies should take responsibility for the housemaid from the time she enters the country.
“I have visited the Filipino consulate and seen their system, it’s well-organised and they are working with a licensed reputable agency, we will go in the same direction,” he said.
Afra Al Basti, Director-General of Dubai Foundation For Women And Children, said that people need to look into the domestic workers’ experience and background, especially regarding whether they have previously looked after children, before employing them, “We noticed through our experience that many parents’ choices were made randomly — it is always good to speak to the domestic worker or interview her, even on the phone.”
Afra also stressed that employers are obliged to ensure maids are paid on time and allowed to take vacations.
Trust
“Parents must not fully trust the domestic worker as she is a stranger and therefore they must not keep the children alone with her without supervision from someone they trust — family members or friends, and in case they don’t have someone to supervise, we recommend keeping children in nurseries to avoid abuse or at least putting a camera in the house to monitor the situation,” she said.
She added that parents also needed to communicate with their children at an early age and build a strong relationship with them, so if they are abused they feel able to tall to them about it.
“Parents need to increase awareness about abuse among their children, educate them and give them some safety steps to protect them from any type of abuse and also teach their children about their body parts, feelings, good and bad touches and types of abuse,” she said.
She added parents must tell their children to scream if their maid tries to abuse them and to tell someone they trust about it. Parents also need to understand that the abuse will be probably not be a one-off incident. The worker may also be threatening the children by saying they might harm or kill them or their parents if they tell anyone about the abuse.
“If parents know that the child has been abused — even once by the maid — then they must not allow her to continue with her work, as there will be a good chance the abuse is repeated with even more severity,” she added.
Afra advises parents to open their eyes and trust their instincts if they feel uneasy about what is going on. She said many parents blamed themselves after such incidents happened because they did not do this. She said that if abuse does take place the child mustn’t be blamed.
“Parents need to inform the police and shouldn’t just return the maid to the agency as this will be putting other families at risk as well.”
Brigadier Ali Alwan, Commander-in-chief of Ajman Police, told Gulf News that Ajman Police periodically launched campaigns aimed at reducing crime committed by domestic workers, and raising awareness in both Emirati and expatriate families to deal with domestic workers in a humanitarian way.
He said that not paying salaries on time and piling too much work onto domestic workers are the main reasons that force them to commit crime.
He stressed the importance of treating them humanely, adding that if ignored or treated with aggression and contempt, domestic workers pose a real threat to the safety of families.
He echoed Afra’s advice to exercise caution while employing domestic workers and to check their backgrounds carefully. And once employed, he urged them to keep a close eye on them.
