Dubai : A domestic help, whose sponsor reportedly tried to put her on a flight back home after cancelling her residence visa without fully settling her salary dues, managed to escape without boarding the aircraft in a bid to claim her dues.
The Filipina housemaid, identified as Jesusa B., said she worked for an Emirati family in Dubai for more than two years. When she decided to go back home last month her sponsor booked her on a flight and took her to the airport. He allegedly cancelled her visa at the airport's immigration office without clearing the dues.
Jesusa told Gulf News that she told an immigration officer that the sponsor had not paid her salary for several months and that the sponsor owed her Dh2,300. She said the sponsor promised to send her money in monthly instalments.
"I was not convinced as he did not give me my money while I'm here; so how he will send me my money to my home country?" she said.
Supporting family
Jesusa said that after her visa was cancelled she did not go to the passport control counters. "When I saw the sponsor left the place I also left the airport and I went to my friends' house in Dubai, then after that I went to stay with other friends in Ajman," she said.
She said she wanted her money before travelling because she is a mother and has to support her family. While trying to travel to Kish Island to obtain another employment visa she was arrested at Dubai airport.
"It seems my sponsor came to know that I did not go to my country and he filed [an] absconding case against me," she told Gulf News from the Al Aweer deportation jail.
Illegal act
Lieutenant Colonel Khalaf Al Gaith, assistant director general for illegals and foreigners' affairs, said that what this housemaid did was illegal and she was not supposed to enter the country again from the airport.
"She should have complained to our dispute office at the residency department and we could have helped her," he said. He said that Jesusa will be transferred to public prosecutor and court. "We will call the sponsor to investigate the case and if he had paid her salary or not," he said.
