Pinay maid in Kuwait faces gallows for slay
Philippine authorities will appeal a Kuwaiti court’s conviction of a Filipino maid who was found to have murdered a two-year-old infant last December.
Neither the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) nor the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), along with the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait, did not identify the maid, but said they would exhaust all legal remedies allowed by Kuwaiti law.
The maid was sentenced to death on Wednesday after months of trial that shocked the Persian Gulf emirate and sparked widespread public outrage.
Only days after the killing, the DMW and the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait said in separate statements that the incident was “an isolated case and does not reflect the values of Filipinos or overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who are widely recognized for their caring nature.”
Nonetheless, Philippine authorities said they would continue to provide legal and consular assistance to the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in accordance with law.
According to case records, the Filipino maid allegedly placed the Kuwaiti child inside a washing machine at her employers’ residence in Kuwait’s Sabah Al-Salem residential district.
The parents tried to revive the child and bring him to a hospital, but the infant was dead upon arrival.
Ranara case
The incident happened only six months after Kuwait lifted its visa ban on Filipino domestic workers in June 2024, following an agreement with the Philippines after the 2023 killing of OFW Jullebee Ranara.
Ranara was a 34-year-old mother of four who was found dead in the desert in January 2023 near Al-Salmi Road, her corpse burnt with her head smashed and was also supposed to have been raped. Forensic examination conducted in the Philippines found that she was pregnant at the time of her death.
Kuwaiti authorities managed to arrest the perpetrator of the crime, Turki Ayed Al-Azmi, the 17-year son of Ranara’s employer about whom she complained about days before her killing.
Days after after Ranara’s death, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salen Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah condemned the killings and condoled with Ranara’s family, saying that the perpetrator’s actions do not reflect the character and values of Kuwaiti society, the Kuwaiti people and the Kuwaiti government.
Only last Tuesday, Kuwait’s Criminal Court also sentenced a Kuwaiti citizen to 14 years in prison for fatally beating his Filipino maid.
Prosecutors found that the unidentified Filipino victim was beaten with a stick, forcibly confined inside the home, denied medical treatment despite her deteriorating health, and compelled to continue working under severe physical and psychological abuse.
The court found that the man assaulted the woman to death before burying her in the garden of his home in Saad Al Abdullah district to conceal his crime.
Authorities referred the suspect to a psychiatric hospital to evaluate his mental state, but the court affirmed his responsibility for the crime.
In addition, the court sentenced his father, brother and expatriate wife to one year in prison with hard labor for helping conceal the crime and failing to report it to authorities.
