Ill treatment forces some to flee

Domestic staff tell of overwork and unpaid wages

ABU DHABI // A lack of proper meals, overwork, physical assault and unpaid wages have forced some housemaids to flee their employers’ homes and seek shelter at their embassies.

The Nepalese embassy in Abu Dhabi currently shelters seven maids, most of whom entered the UAE on tourism or cleaners’ visas and later obtained domestic work visas.

Krishna Kumari, 25, fled her employer’s home after going unpaid for 13 months.

“I came here on a visitor’s visa and started working as a maid,” said Ms Kumari, who worked with an Arab family in Sharjah on a contract that included a monthly wage of Dh700. She had travelled from New Delhi to Dubai.

Narmada Thapa, 33, arrived in the UAE five years ago and earned Dh1,400 a month working for an Indian family in Dubai.

“I left my job after my employer humiliated me and pushed me out of the house,” she said. “My employer told me to take her daughter to the shopping mall to buy some ingredients to make cake for her.

“In the mall the daughter was putting stuff in the trolley that we didn’t want to buy, so I politely said to her, ‘Don’t do that’. When we returned home, she complained to her mother that I shouted at her. Then her mother shouted at me and mistreated me.”

The Nepalese embassy’s labour office said it strives to ensure rights for maids and to re- patriate those in need of help.

“Mostly they fled homes over salary disputes, physical abuse, overwork, unpaid wages and depression,” said Hira Kumari Yadav, the labour attache.

Ujeli Limbu, 33, was deemed medically unfit so she fled her employer’s home and started working illegally. She arrived on a visitor’s visa in Ras Al Khaimah 17 months ago, but worked as a maid. “Now I want to go back home with the help of the embassy,” said Ms Limbu, who has been at the embassy for 20 days.