Maid accused of affair tells court she was raped

Maid arrested after giving birth to a boy last year tells court she was raped by her sponsor and another man.

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DUBAI // A maid arrested after giving birth could not tell who the child's father was because she was raped by her sponsor as well as the household's driver, a court heard.

AJ, 20, from Ethiopia, was arrested along with her Emirati sponsor AD, 36, shortly after giving birth to a baby boy at the Iranian Hospital on December 21 last year, prosecutors told the Misdemeanours Court.

Authorities suspected initially that the child's father was the sponsor. But under interrogation, the maid said she was unsure who the father was because she had been raped by both her sponsor and the household's driver at about the time of conception.

A DNA test proved that the sponsor was not the child's father.

The maid claimed her sponsor had returned to his home in Al Barsha in March last year and called her into his bedroom.

"When I entered he pushed me to his bed and had sex with me and threatened to end my services and cause me a big problem if I told anyone," said the maid.

Few days later, to the maid's surprise, her sponsor lent her his mobile phone to call her mother in Ethiopia.

However, after she made the call, her sponsor attacked her, asking her "did you think you made the call for free?" before raping her again.

She said that during the same month the household's driver, an Indian identified in court as N, also raped her as she cleaned the family's Majlis.

"He gagged me, threw me to the ground and raped me," said the maid who came to court carrying her newborn.

She said the driver then warned her not to tell anyone about what he had done. He told her he was having an affair with the sponsor's wife so she would not help her.

The sponsor and his wife did not report the maid to police during the nine months of her pregnancy and took her to hospital when she went into labour.

Prosecutors said that under interrogation the sponsor admitted having sex with the maid, but claimed she had seduced him and that it was consensual.

The maid and her sponsor were charged with having consensual sex, a charge the both denied. The driver was not charged as authorities have been unable to find him.

A verdict is expected on March 20.