Nepali maid conceive in Kuwait rape

KATHMANDU: Uma Karki (name changed) left Nepal for Kuwait in search of improved future a couple of years ago. But life was not much easier there as well.

She was hired as a domestic helper of a well-off Muslim family in a Kuwaiti city of Grand Adah. It happened to her what she never feared to happen. The landlord whom she idolised as a parent took her honesty for weakness and eventually made her pregnant besides torturing her mentally and physically.

"I can remember the day when I found myself stripped. My body was aching. The reality got into my head only after the menstruation cycle paused."

Karki (30) who is now eight-month-pregnant claimed that she might be rendered unconscious by spiking tea before she was raped. "I have been left with no options but to give birth to a baby fathered by a Kuwaiti man," she told the mediapersons in Maiti Nepal, Kathmandu today.

She was dry-eyed when she recounted a harrowing experience in Kuwait. "Earlier, I thought I might die but didn't for the care of my two children," said Karki who is in the care of Maiti Nepal. She is the only bread-winner in the family.

Her husband was killed in a road mishap some nine years ago. Karki's family was in dire financial situation following the death of her husband.

She opted for foreign employment since Karki and her two children were left to fend for themselves. "But, life was not that easier in stranger's home either. The landlord and his adult sons frequently molested me when the landlady was away from home for her daily chores," Karki informed, adding that she never gave them consent for sexual advance.

Karki said that the landlord and his sons were scared with the authoritative landlady and never dared to come on her way in her presence.

One day she fled the house and went to the police seeking help, but to no avail. "The employer offered a bribe to the police and they passed the buck to a driver for making me pregnant. The police also exempted the landlord from undergoing medical test to ascertain the biological father of the unborn child," she recounted.

"Had the incident reached to the landlady's ears, she would have killed me as it is regarded as a matter of dishonour in Muslim society". She, however, did not go to Nepali Embassy for she was unaware of it.

Karki said she rushed to the police department for three months for justice. "But, I was finally sent back home high and dry," she said. She is planning to undergo skill trainings in Kathmandu for family upkeep.