Maltreated Filipino Housemaid Recovering
UNDER TREATMENT: Marissa Y. Magsucang claims her sponsor’s wife starved and beat her.
A Filipino housemaid here claims she was starved and beaten by the wife of her sponsor.
Marissa Y. Magsucang, 32, is under treatment at King Khaled Hospital where she had been confined since losing consciousness while at work.
“Two Philippine Embassy representatives are currently in Hail to talk to the police regarding my case,” Magsucang told Arab News in a telephonic interview on Thursday.
One of the representatives, Camaludin Mangis, said that he and case officer Ahmad Alani are negotiating to have Magsucang sent home to her family in Sultan Kudarat, southern Philippines. Magsucang has three children, two girls and a boy. The eldest is now 17 years old.
Magsucang claims that she passed out while working at a wedding reception for employer’s family because of fatigue, hunger and injuries sustained from being beaten by her sponsor’s wife.
When she passed out, Magsucang was rushed in a limousine to the hospital where she eventually regained consciousness. Magsucang said her sponsor was a good man.
“When he was around, his wife was nice to me. However, when he was out of the house, she beat me up. Sometimes, she would hit me on the head with steel utensils,” she said.
A Filipino community leader, Ameera Luna Domingo, who has been helping stranded compatriots in the region, said: “There were times when she was not given any food at all. There were also instances when the food given to her was spoiled.”
Domingo said that when Magsucang passed out, no one knew her name. So she made inquiries at Al-Usos firm, which happened to be Magsucang’s local agency. She eventually contacted the Philippine Embassy about Magsucang’s case.
Magsucang’s Philippine agency is Raysa International, which deployed her to the Kingdom on Sep. 24, 2014, for a monthly salary of SR1,500. However, she claims that she only received SR1,200 for two months, which violated the labor pact signed between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia in 2013.
Magsucang also claimed she had to work for other families, which was also a violation of the Philippine-Saudi labor accord.