mentalist

If your maid showed symptoms of pregnancy, would you immediately hand her over to the Police once the pregnancy has been confirmed? It makes you wonder if some Employers over here actually have a heart.
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-n...th-illegal-sex

Millsyisland

The family was Jordanian. In that case this does not surprise me. Honour-killings are still rife in Jordan, she's lucky they didn't string her up for bringing shame on the family.

lanarkwitch

My old boss had a maid who almost gave birth on his living room floor a few months ago, it turned out she had been wearing girdles to conceal the pregnancy as she had got knocked up by her boyfriend and her hubs back home, wasn't going to be too chuffed, so she had booked her annual leave to coincide with her due date, planned to have the baby back home and leave it with her boyfriends parents, and then just pop back to work like nothing had happened, however it seems her girdle wearing is what caused her premature labour. In the end it cost the boss circa 25k in hospital bills/flights etc, weeks of worrying what would happen to him and his mrs and the maid was detained in prison with the baby for almost 3 months before being deported. A massively stressful and expensive experience for them and they have since gone back home to OZ.

So in a word, YES, I'd have her up the cop shop as fast as her little feet would carry her.

Ethos83

She'd be on the first plane back to Manila/dipshit village in India/Sri Lanka once I got wind of a pregnancy.

A maid's personal life may be her own thing, but it's my business if the maid gets pregnant whilst on my sponsorship. An out of wedlock pregnancy is a big no-no down there in the UAE, so all ties immediately cut and off she goes.

Even if she was married I'd still terminate the contract because a pregnant maid/new mother isn't able to do the job as well. But I'd send her off with a month or two salary as a bonus.

co durham boy

Going to jail for being pregnant and unmarried is barbaric in every instance and offering to send them there is even worse.

Boomhauer

Even maids are human, so they have human needs.

Patsy Stoned

I would send her home for her own safety. No way would I report her.
I know girls who have taken their annual leave and come back a month later no longer pregnant..depends what they want, either way I would help them

Sandboy

treating them like a fellow human ? it'll never catch on unfortunately

lanarkwitch

That doesn't mean they need to tell lies and stick you in the crap and cost you 25k though does it?

There is very little point in me being a law abiding citizen here if I am going to have someone under my sponsorship break what is a very serious law here. We all know the law exists, probably very few of us agree with it, but it is nevertheless something that we need to abide by.

There was no reason that maid could not have told her employers the truth, they were very close and treated her like a daughter, she would have been flown home, given leave and told to come back when she was ready, but she didn't give them the opportunity to that.

Sometimes we just have to deal with the fact that not everyone here's moral compass point just quite as far North as our own, I could have my own thread here about how maids treat me, but that's another story

lanarkwitch

I would have said that myself before I had the misfortune of seeing a lovely family ripped apart by a situation that was really totally unnecessary, sorry to say it but I just wouldn't trust them enough anymore

co durham boy

Wow , your stance on this amazes me , is everything so black & white in your world ?

Ethos83

Why so judgemental?

When you sponsor a maid in the UAE, you become what is effectively the the maid's legal guardian and you will be held partly responsible should the maid break the law.

I knew a few people in Dubai whose maids got caught working illegally without their sponsors' knowledge, and they still had to pay a stiff fine.

You can claim as much moral superiority as you want but most people don't have bottomless bank accounts to pay the fines or the liberty to spend some time in jail. Most people also don't want to see their maids locked up just for being pregnant, which is why they just quietly get the maid out of the country on the next plane and end the contract there and then.

lanarkwitch

No, but unfortunately on this one I have quite specific feelings and have had to thicken my skin about certain things since I came here, it's one of the not nice parts of being here

iamthestig

The right thing to do, no question. How could anyone who didn't help a fellow expat in a time of exceptional need live with that on their conscience?

It's mind boggling that not everyone agrees

lanarkwitch

I too have had many friends who have ended up in trouble or had major issues with maids, and from that I've been able to make my own dealings with them a bit easier by nipping any nonsense in the bud as soon as it rears it's head, unfortunately, being here, means me and my family are my main priority.