Kuwait City: An appeals court has reduced
a jail term to seven years of a Kuwaiti woman who left her
Asian maid suffer for 10 hours until she died after pushing
her into a bathtub, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The criminal court had sentenced the woman, whose name
was not given, to 15 years in jail after convicting her of
"intentionally" killing her maid by repeatedly beating her
with iron and wooden objects, Al-Watan newspaper said.
Then the woman pushed the maid into the bathtub and
left her motionless for 10 hours until she died, the paper
said.
Al-Watan quoted the Kuwaiti woman`s lawyer Yacoub
al-Sane as saying that the appeals court agreed to change the
charge from "intentional killing" to "beating that led to
death" and accordingly reduced the sentence.
The Gulf state of Kuwait is home to over 600,000 Asian
domestic helpers who often complain of maltreatment,
non-payment of salary and tough working conditions. Many flee
to their embassies.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay yesterday criticised
the treatment of an estimated 12 million foreign workers in
the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Oman, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Many are subject to illegal practices like
confiscation of their passports, withholding wages and
exploitation by job agents, Pillay said in an address at
a Saudi Arabian university.
PTI
