DUBAI: An Abu Dhabi woman was sentenced to 16 years in prison for beating her Indonesian maid to death with a frying pan, court sources confirmed on Tuesday to Bikyamasr.com. The Criminal Court also convicted the woman's neighbor of also attacking the Indonesian woman, and delivered a 13 year sentence. Both defendants are ordered to pay the family 200,000 dirhams as “blood money,” the court said. According to 7 Days Dubai, a witness told the court that the victim was regularly stripped and beaten in order to “humiliate her.” Domestic workers in the Gulf region, including the United Arab Emirates, face widespread hardships and violence at the hands of their employers. The Indonesian government has, on and off, placed a moratorium on sending women to the Gulf as reports of violence, rape and murder continue to stream in from the region. “It is a very dangerous situation for women coming to work as maids and something that the court recognizes and punished,” said social worker Mariam al-Jamal in Dubai. She added that “I work often with women who faced so much violence they are mentally distraught and fear for their lives.” Prosecutors told the court that the employer and her neighbour struck the maid with a frying pan in a brutal attack after the pair had removed the victim's clothes. The two defendants were also accused of trying to cover up their crime by telling investigators that the maid had suffered her head injuries when she slipped and fell. Both defendants denied the assault leading to death when they appeared at an earlier hearing, each accusing the other of having killed the victim. The employer accused her neighbour of being gay and said he killed the maid because the victim had threatened to report his homosexuality to the police. The neighbour denied the claim and said he was present at the woman's house when she attacked her maid. He claimed he did not take part in the beating.
