Maid kills employer’s daughter in Sulaibikhat
– Suspect turns self in – MPs vent anger on Ethiopian workers
KUWAIT: An Ethiopian domestic worker stabbed her employer’s teenage daughter to death in Sulaibikhat yesterday, in yet another stab-murder case in which housemaids target children of their employers in Kuwait. No reason was given for the murder, but it was reported that the maid said she had been insulted the night before. Several Kuwaiti lawmakers meanwhile vented anger on Ethiopian workers, demanding a total ban on their recruitment.
The suspect, identified as 22-year-old Rabiya Mahmoud, turned herself in at Sulaibikhat police station at 5:45 am. She admitted killing 19-year-old Seham Al-Shemmari, daughter of former Kuwaiti national football team defender Hmoud Flaiteh Al-Shemmari, earlier that morning. She confirmed that the murder happened at Shemmari’s house where she worked as a housemaid, and cited conflicts with the victim as the reason.
The circumstances behind the crime and the suspect’s exact motives remain unclear as of the newspaper’s publishing. The police report says that officers responded to an emergency call reporting that a door was locked in a Sulaibikhat house with a girl inside. The girl was found bleeding heavily after firefighters broke the door open with her parents present, before she was rushed to the hospital. The victim arrived dead at the Mubarak Hospital according to the medical report, which confirmed that the death was a result of four stab wounds – two in the chest and two in the abdominal area.
The suspect later turned herself in. She told officers that she stabbed the victim multiple times in the girl’s bedroom while she asleep, then locked her inside the room before leaving her employer’s house. She also handed over the knife she used in the crime. She also confessed that she had planned the murder days earlier and that her plans had been delayed because of the presence of the victim’s younger sister.
The victim’s father was a member of the Kuwait national team that participated in the 1982 World Cup. He currently serves as the Deputy Director General for Youth Affairs at the Public Authority for Youth and Sports. Shemmari confirmed the news on his Twitter account yesterday, and stated that his daughter was to be laid to rest yesterday afternoon. Seham Al-Shemmari was a freshman at Kuwait University’s Faculty or Arts, Al-Aan news website reported yesterday. It added that students and teaching staff were in ‘a state of shock’ following the murder.
‘Heinous crime’
The case drew an outcry in Kuwait where around 800,000 of the country’s nearly 4 million people are domestic workers. People took to social media to demand the death penalty for the suspect, which is the sentence recognized in Kuwait’s penal code for premeditated murder. A number of MPs also reacted angrily to the murder, with some calling on the interior ministry to impose a blanket ban on the recruitment of Ethiopian manpower, especially domestic helpers, and even stop renewing the residence permits of those already in the country. There are around 40,000 Ethiopians in Kuwait, the Interior Ministry’s public relations and moral guidance director Col Adel Al-Hashash said yesterday.
“The death penalty must be enforced as soon as possible after the maid admitted her heinous crime,” MP Talal Al-Jalal said in a press statement. He also called for media coverage of the suspect’s execution “in order to set an example”. Jalal also called for studies on crimes by maids based on the suspects’ nationalities and ages. “We urge the general secretariat of the National Assembly to carry out a study containing authentic statistics based on which the state can ban recruitment of housemaids of certain nationalities,” he added.
By Hanan Al-Saadoun, B Izzak and A Saleh
“The interior minister must immediately take a decision to ban the entry of Ethiopian workers and stop renewing the residence permits of those in the country” MP Roudhan Al-Roudhan said. Roudhan also appealed to Kuwaiti families to sack Ethiopian domestic helpers in order to “safeguard the lives of our children after the criminal intent of this nationality (Ethiopians) has been confirmed in Kuwait and Gulf countries”.
MP Kamel Al-Awadhi, former director general of the immigration department, said he had suggested on three occasions to authorities when he was at the immigration department to ban the entry of Ethiopian manpower because of their “criminal” tendency. Awadhi strongly criticized the current situation of the domestic helpers recruitment offices and what he called their chaotic situation, insisting that such crimes will continue as long as these offices are not regulated. He said that maids’ offices are not qualified to recruit competent and reliable domestic helpers, adding that the solution lies in the establishment of a national company for recruitment.
MP Abdullah Al-Tameemi backed Awadhi assessment, stressing the chaotic situation of the maids recruitment offices, saying the latest crime is a proof of the lack of regulation. MP Khalil Al-Saleh also blamed the government for bringing what he called “cheap” and unqualified labourers while failing to recruit maids from Indonesia for example. Indonesia stopped sending domestic workers to Kuwait in 2009 citing concerns over abuse.
MP Safa Al-Hashem questioned the reasons behind recruiting Ethiopian housemaids following Indonesia’s decision to stop sending domestic helpers to Kuwait. MP Abdulhameed Dashti also demanded a halt to Ethiopian labor forces’ recruitment “due to the increasing number of crimes committed by nationals of this country in specific”.
The crime brought back to people’s attention a similar case from Nov 2011, where a housemaid killed her employer’s 25-year-old daughter on the eve of the victim’s wedding. In October, the appeals court upheld the death sentence for the maid, who is also Ethiopian.
Yesterday’s case, along with 2011′s crime, shed light on the often shaky relationship between families and housemaids in a country were citizens rely heavily on domestic helpers to attend to their household affairs. “This tragic case requires opening the domestic helpers’ file and address the problems it contains,” Jalal said, calling at the same time for periodic tests of housemaids to “examine their mental state”.
Ethiopian maids’ ban
Kuwait recently banned recruitment of domestic helpers from Ethiopia, and the Interior Ministry did not provide a reason for the decision. However, a security source quoted in local news reports yesterday said the decision was based on “10 murder and attempted murder cases reported during a year and a half period in which Ethiopian housemaids were the suspects.”
Last November, Addis Ababa issued a prohibition for its nationals from traveling to Kuwait for work pending a response from Kuwaiti authorities on its request for “amendments on recruitment procedures for Ethiopian labor forces and reassessment of the work of domestic helpers’ recruitment offices, medical testing procedures and the age limit for recruited workers.”
The Ethiopian embassy said when it announced the measure then that the decision was taken by the Ethiopian government to “protect citizens’ rights” and “combat human trafficking”. “The decision is temporary… and came as a result of problems currently facing labor forces including mistreatment, violation of workers’ rights, abuse, murder and increase in human trafficking practiced by licensed offices,” reads a statement released by the Ethiopian embassy on Nov 24, 2013.
The lack of a domestic labor law in Kuwait and other Gulf countries is a matter of controversy. The sponsorship or kafala system which regulates the affairs of foreign labor forces in Kuwait does not cover domestic helpers. As a result, complaints are often made by both employers who claim breach of contractual agreement and sometimes use of violence, as well as domestic workers who claim similar breaches and human rights violations.
Domestic labor abuse is often mentioned as a dark spot in the human rights record of Kuwait and other countries in the Gulf region and Middle East. Last January, a Farwaniya man was charged with murder after admitting to beating his housemaid to death, while a couple were arrested two months earlier for beating their maid to death inside their apartment in the same area.
“Even though the Middle East and North Africa are home to some of the worst abuses against domestic workers, the pace of legal reforms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Lebanon has dragged on for years with little to show,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a report released in October last year.
Her statements came in an official release to announce a report that assess progress since the adoption of 2011 adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, an international treaty that entitles domestic workers to the same basic rights as other workers. Kuwait is yet to ratify the treaty.
-source Kuwaittimes