Kuwaitis jailed for raping Filipina

Kuwait’s top court has sentenced three policemen to between seven and 10 years in jail for raping an 18-year-old Filipino housemaid at a police station in 2003.

Some 70,000 Filipinos, mostly domestics, work in Kuwait

The court, whose verdicts are final, sentenced Mohammed Abdullah to 10 years in prison, while Mohammed Falah and Abdul Latif Johar were each given seven years behind bars, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

The three men, in November that year, repeatedly raped their victim at a police station, according to the public prosecution’s indictment.

The three policemen had denied the charges but forensic tests indicated the maid had been raped by the accused.

The girl had reportedly fled her employer’s house and sought protection in the police station when the rapes took place during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Kuwaiti courts normally give harsh sentences for sexual abuse, especially if it is committed by people in positions of authority.
More than 70,000 Filipinos live and work in the oil-rich Gulf Arab emirate, 47,000 of them as domestics, some of whom complain of maltreatment.

In November 2003, the Philippine Foreign Ministry summoned Kuwait’s charge d’affaires to express outrage over a Philippine domestic helper being gang-raped by nine Kuwaiti teenagers at a desert camp.

Source: AFP