Pinay housemaid rescued from abusive employer in Dubai

MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino household helper was rescued from her abusive Moroccan employer in Dubai last weekend, an online news site reported Tuesday. Khaleej Times reported that Dubai police and officials of the Philippine Overseas Labour Office (POLO) rescued the Filipino helper, whose identity was withheld, last Sunday. The Filipino helper had sought assistance from her employer’s second-floor apartment in Al Qusais by throwing letters to Filipinos working on the ground. Several Filipino expatriates who got the letters relayed her calls for help to the Philippine Consulate General on Sunday morning. The Filipino helper was described as a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Education, and arrived in Dubai through an employment agency. During the rescue operation, her employer denied beating the maid. Welfare Officer Elmer Joven, who led the police to the location of the woman, said the team rescued her at 4 p.m. Sunday. “She is now in good hands, and staying at the welfare office of the Philippine Consulate General," he said. He said he would press the maid’s agency in Dubai to issue her an air ticket back home as the victim preferred to go home instead of finding another employer in the Emirates or filing a case. A Filipino who made efforts to help the woman by presenting her letters to the Consulate alleged that almost every day he and his Indian co-workers could hear cries for help from the second floor of the building. “When we looked up the building from outside we saw the lady crying and throwing these letters at us which said that her employer was harassing her," said the Filipino. In her letters, the maid asked to be rescued by authorities from the mistreatment of her Morrocan woman employer. She said she had not received her salary for the past four months because her employer had turned it over to her agency. Also, the maid said she was not given decent food and threatened with physical harm if caught eating from what remained on the table when her employer, her Emirati husband and three children finished their meals. - GMANews.TV