Employers attack hospitalises Indonesian maid

An Indonesian housemaid was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia with serious injuries after members of her employers’ family beat her up and burned most parts of her body with hot iron, local newspapers reported on Monday.

The 23-year-old maid suffered from multiple burns and fractures following the attack by most family members at their house in the western town of Madina just three months after she arrived to work for them, the papers said.

Photographs published in Saudi Gazette newspaper showed the Sumiati Salan Mustapa’s face was badly hurt because of the beating, which prompted Indonesian diplomats in the Gulf Kingdom to call for punishing the attackers.

“We want justice for our workers,” Didi Wahyedi, the Indonesian Consul for Citizen Protection, was quoted by the paper as saying.

“The way the victim has been treated is totally un-Islamic and un-human. This is a reflection of the sponsor’s irresponsibility and we want to complain about it.”

Mustapa, who arrived in Saudi Arabia in July for the SR800 job, was admitted to  King Fahd Hospital in Madina early Monday with serious injuries after most members of her employer’s family joined hands in torturing her.

“She was in a very serious condition,” said Miea Mirlina, who works at King Fahd Hospital. “Her body was burned on many places, both legs were almost motionless, parts of her skin on her head were removed and strong marks of old wounds were on her body including skin loss on lips and head, a fractured middle finger and a cut near an eye. Her body shows how badly she was treated.”

Mustapa, who said she cannot understand Arabic or English, told police that the mother and daughter of her sponsor treated her very badly and that the mother frequently beat her severely and burned her with a hot iron.

A doctor at King Fahd Hospital said Mustapa “was wounded from head to toe when she was admitted unconscious to the hospital.”

“The maid will recover but it will take at least two weeks for her to heal and she will have to undergo plastic surgery,” the doctor was quoted as saying.

Mustapa said she "no longer wants to stay in the kingdom and intends to return to Indonesia as soon as possible".

The papers did not elaborate on whether authorities have taken any action against the attacking family.