Dubai: An Arab expatriate woman living in Dubai said she discovered the housemaid working for her was in fact a man in disguise. The woman has filed a complaint against the agency responsible for the recruitment of the "maid".
"I paid Dh8,500 to the recruitment agent who completed the paper works, including the issuance of the residency stamp and the medical test," the woman told Al Khaleej Arabic daily.
The woman, a banker, who lives with her younger sister in Dubai, said her long working hours and the fact that her sister was a student at one of the Dubai universities, had prompted her to seek a helping hand.
The woman said that the "maid's" performance at home was unsatisfactory and would come forward to hug her whenever she told the "maid" 'to do the work properly'.
After a while, the woman said, "I asked the servant to stand at a distance while talking and stop touching."
Finally, the complainant decided to terminate the "maid’s" service. "I went through "her" luggage to find out if she had stolen anything from the house before sending her back to the recruitment agent. The big surprise was when I found only men’s underwear in the maid’s bag; none of the things found in the bags indicated that the servant was a female," the complainant said.
Soon after she handed over the servant to the agent, the complainant went to the US for a month and upon her return she collected the departure certificate of the "maid" from the agent to use it for recruiting another maid.
The certificate issued by the immigration authority at the airport certified the gender of the "maid" as male.
The agent claimed that the maid was in fact a married woman and that there was a mistake in the departure slip issued by the airport authority.
Brigadier General Obaid Muhair Bin Surour, Deputy Residency and Foreigner Affairs Department Director, said families have to check for themselves about the gender of their servants as departments only deal with official papers.
