Friday, Jun 28, 2013
Dubai: A maid has been arrested after she was caught giving a baby boy cough medicine so she could watch television in peace, police told Gulf News.
Lieutenant Colonel Ahmad Mohammad Al Merri, head of the Development and Training Department at Dubai Police Criminal and Investigation Department (CID), said the crime was discovered when the baby’s mother noticed someone had been using the medicine, which was kept in the refrigerator for emergencies.
He said the cook told the baby’s mother the maid had been giving the medicine to the baby to make him sleep so she could watch television while everyone was out of the house. The baby boy was less than a year old.
Lt Colonel Al Merri, head of the one-month campaign ‘Domestic Helpers, Care and Accusations’ said that crimes committed by housemaids mostly occurred inside the home. These included endangering children’s lives and sometimes domestic workers sexually harassed the family’s teenage sons. He said a common crime was to give babies very hot milk in order to burn their throats and stomachs.
“Such crimes have happened a lot of times and have been reported to the police,” he said.
He said housemaids here usually committed crimes under the category of criminal carelessness.
“Such crimes happen when the housemaid allows the toddler to play near the swimming pool alone while she is busy with her work when the family is away, or lets the child play on the balcony alone or allows the child to be close to a fire or hot water,” he said.
“Some cases of drowning have been reported to police because of such carelessness,” he said.
He said in 2011 some 13 serious crimes against children by domestic helpers were reported. Two of them involved sexual harassment and the rest were violence against children. One involved a housemaid who got pregnant and then tried to kill her child.
Lt Colonel Al Merri said that most of these crimes happened as a result of the maids being mistreated by their sponsor or being overloaded with work, not being paid on time or not being paid at all.
He said domestic helpers who are targeted in the Dubai Police campaign are nannies, housemaids, cooks and farmers.
“This is the second week of the campaign and we need to raise public awareness on the fact that not taking care of the domestic helper at home will endanger the family and the children’s lives,” he said.
He said it has become very costly for people to bring domestic helpers here and it is also very costly for housemaids to come here.
“Some countries make the housemaid pay very high fees in order to work outside her country,” he said.
He said employers should treat housemaids fairly to avoid any trouble. He said parents should remain alert and investigate if they discover any bruises on their child or think something abnormal has happened to them.
He said police statistics revealed that high-earning Emiratis tended to hire more than one housemaid. Another reason is that many Emirati women are now working and they need a maid. Also many Emiratis marry more than one woman.
“Each woman the man marries will ask her husband to hire a housemaid for her,” he said.
He said the campaign will continue until July 17 and will include activities and awareness lectures for families and their domestic helpers.
By Bassma Al Jandaly Community and Crime ?Correspondent
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
