DUBAI // A runaway maid who tried to sell her child for Dh4,000 was sentenced today to three years in prison.
SM, 22, from Indonesia, became pregnant a few months after moving in with her boyfriend TK from Pakistan.
He asked her to have an abortion, but she refused to do so and her boyfriend fled to Oman.
The woman gave birth at home last August, assisted by a friend from Indonesia.
Police set up a sting operation when they learnt she was trying to sell the baby girl. She was arrested in February after handing over the child to undercover police officers and accepting the money in the car park of a shopping mall. “When I asked her why she was selling her baby, she said she was so poor, she wouldn’t be able to support her back in her country, and that she needed the money to return to her country,” said HA, 37, one of the two undercover officers.
“I was out of my mind when I tried to sell her,” said SM, whose child is now being cared for by the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children.
The mother pleaded guilty at Dubai Criminal court to charges of human trafficking.
She will be deported after completing her jail term. Her boyfriend faces charges of sex out of wedlock, and remains at large.
salamir@thenational.ae
