An Ethiopian maid who survived falling several storeys in Kuwait has said she wasn’t trying to commit suicide, but “trying to escape from the woman who tried to kill me” in a video broadcast on Ethiopian TV.
A video of the woman dangling from the balcony of her employer’s flat went viral last week after it was filmed by her employer. The maid is heard shouting for help, saying “hold me, hold me,” before losing her grip and falling several floors.
On Sunday, another video appeared of the woman in a hospital in Kuwait which was broadcast by Ethiopian media in which she denied she was suicidal.
“The lady put me in the bathroom and was about to kill me in the bathroom without anybody finding out, she would have thrown my body out like rubbish, so instead of staying there I went to save myself and then I fell,” she said on the video.
“Alhamdulillah, I was protected. And so, what can be done?”
Previously the incident had been described as an “apparent suicide attempt” though the woman now denies this.
Kuwaiti police arrested the employer for filming the incident without trying to rescue her employee, media and a rights group said.
The Kuwaiti woman filmed as her maid landed on a metal awning and survived, then posted the incident on social media, al-Seyassah newspaper reported.
Paramedics rescued the maid and rushed her to a hospital where she was found to have suffered a broken arm and bleeding from her nose and ears, the newspaper reported.
The Kuwait Society for Human Rights in a statement condemned the incident, saying there was “no care for her life,” and called for an official investigation.
People expressed shock on social media as to why the employer just stood there and recorded it all.
The criminal investigation police referred the maid’s employer to prosecutors for failing to help the victim, the daily said.
Earlier this year a couple were arrested in Kuwait for torturing a maid until she was able to escape and find help.
The oil-rich Gulf state is home to more than 600,000 domestic helpers, a majority of them Asians, many of whom complain of abuse, mistreatment and nonpayment of wages.
Hundreds of maids escape their employers every year over abuse, and the government has set up shelters for them. Some seek help from their embassies.