DUBAI // A security guard promised to find a maid a better job, but instead fed her alcohol and raped her, a court heard today.
SA, a 29-year-old from Ethiopia, said she met her compatriot MH, 26, at an Ethiopian restaurant in September 2011 when she was having lunch with a friend.
"We spoke and he asked me about my work. When I told him I worked as a maid in Sharjah for a Dh600 monthly salary, he said he could find me a better paying job," she said.
The two exchanged phone numbers and after about three weeks she called him to ask him if he had been successful in finding her work. He told her he had not forgotten his promise and would get back to her soon.
"He called me later the same day and told me to meet him in a hotel to provide him with my passport copy and other documents," she said.
The next day she met him at about 7pm at a hotel in Dubai. She waited in the lobby while he supposedly met with the manager to arrange for her to start work at the hotel.
He returned and told her he had got her a job there. The two then went for dinner and afterwards a walk.
As they were walking they noticed an Ethiopian wedding taking place at another hotel which they decided to join.
While at the wedding the security guard offered her a drink. She accepted, not knowing it was alcoholic.
"I felt too shy to turn him down and didn't want to lose my opportunity for the better job he promised me so I drank it," she said.
After taking the drink she felt dizzy and woke up later naked in a bed that was not her own. "I found him next to me and asked him what happened. He said we had sex," said the maid, adding that he asked her to have sex again but she refused and left.
"I took a taxi back to my sponsor's house then on the third day I informed a friend what happened and she told me to go to police," said the maid.
Prosecutors charged the man with rape and illegal consumption of alcohol. He did not enter a plea at the Dubai Criminal Court because there was no translator.
The next hearing will be on June 4 to arrange for a translator.
salamir@thenational.ae
