In Singapore, while many rights groups and non-government organizations seek to intensify laws that protect the rights and claim to fair treatment of foreign domestic workers, there are still cases when the problem becomes the other way around.
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Lately, there have been reports about maids seeking help from loan sharks, but abscond their employers when they are left without the capacity to repay their creditors, which leads to harassment and threats being thrown at the unknowing employer. In such cases, the law serves justice to whom it is due.
Maid who Accused Employer’s Husband of Rape Jailed for 2 Weeks
Case in point – a foreign domestic worker who had wanted to go back to Indonesia, but was prevented from doing so by her employer — allegedly claimed that she had been raped by her employer’s husband and lied to the police for a way out, as shared in a report by Yahoo! News Singapore.
The court later found out that the maid was actually having an extra-marital affair with the man and they had consensual sex twice.
The State Courts on Wednesday (15 May), convicted the maid Sumaini, who goes by one name, to serve jail time for up to two weeks.
The 29-year old Indonesian national pleaded guilty to one charge of giving false information to a public servant.
This started back on 7 February, when Sumaini’s employer called the police to report that her maid had been sexually abused.
Following the report, Sumaini was interviewed at the Police Cantonment Complex by an officer from the Criminal Investigation Department’s Serious Sexual Crime Branch at about 6pm the same day.
According to Sumaini’s statement, she claimed to have been raped by her employer’s husband on January 15.
The details of the interview have been recorded in an investigation statement. Also at the time of the recording of the statement, Sumaini was reminded via a Bahasa Indonesia interpreter that it was a crime to lie to a public servant.
And even after the statement was recorded, her statements were read back to her, to which she confirmed that everything was true and accurate.
At the time of Sumaini’s investigation, her employer’s husband was arrested by a team of police officers and was brought to the lock-up at 6.45pm.
After the interview, the police investigator checked Sumaini’s mobile phone and discovered incriminating messages exchanged between her and her employer’s husband, suggesting that they were having an illicit relationship.
When confronted by this information, Sumaini admitted that she had lied about being raped. This prompted the release of the employer’s husband within the same day.
The maximum punishment for giving false account to a public servant is up to one year in jail, along with a fine of up to SGD 5,000.