Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Raped Filipina Domestic Helper Now Pregnant

(gulfdailynews.com) Bahrain - A FILIPINO housemaid, who claims she was raped whilst escaping from an abusive employer, has found out she is four months pregnant. Philippine Embassy officials are now investigating the 20-year-old maid's claim after tests conducted at the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) confirmed the pregnancy.

She told the GDN in her first Press interview yesterday that she didn't inform embassy officials of the rape because she was "too afraid and embarrassed".

"But now that I know I am pregnant, I had to say something. I really didn't know what to do," she cried.

The maid, whose identity is being protected by the embassy, said she left her Bahraini employer on November 19, nine days after arriving in the country from the Philippines.

Claiming physical and verbal abuse from her female employer, she said she sneaked out of the house at about 3am and walked "for a very long time" until a car with two men inside stopped and asked her where she was hoping to go.

"I told them I was going to the embassy and they said they would drive me there, so I got into the car," she said.

"I know now it was a stupid thing to do because they didn't take me to the embassy, they took me to a flat and one of them forced me to have sex with him."

Hiding her face and tears behind her long hair, she said she was threatened repeatedly by her rapist.

"He said if I screamed or fought him off, he would call the police and I would go to jail," she said.

"He also said he was going to kill me if I told anyone. I was so scared. I really believed he was going to kill me."

She also recalled how the other man had pleaded with the rapist to stop harming her.

"(The two men) argued because one of them wanted to let me go," she said.

"He asked (the rapist) to not harm me and that what he wanted to do was wrong.

"They argued and the other man eventually left the flat.

"I begged for the man who raped me not to harm me, I told him I was Muslim too and to remember that I am someone's daughter, someone's sister.

"But it didn't matter to him.

"He raped me and I couldn't fight him off."

The maid said she was a virgin before the rape and denied suspicions that she may have gotten pregnant while she was still in the Philippines... full story here

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