A Kuwaiti sponsor was seen beating his Asian worker with an iron rod near the Indian Embassy in Kuwait City as the police did nothing to stop him, the Arab Times reported - Opens in new tabthis week.
The worker went to the embassy to seek protection from his abusive sponsor, but did not reach his destination when his sponsor, accompanied by policemen caught on to him. The sponsor then began to brutally hit the worker with an iron rod in front of the policemen who did not stop him. Officials in the Indian embassy who wanted to protect the worker hesitated because of the presence of the apathetic Kuwaiti police. After suffering this abuse, the worker was arrested and brought to the Daiya Police Station where he was pressured into some form of "compromise".
Unfortunately, this disturbing case of injustice is not extraordinary. Only a few days ago we reported about the rape of a maid by a Kuwaiti police officer. Migrant workers commit suicide in Kuwait on a weekly, if not a daily basis, and the causes of their death are rarely investigated. No sponsor to date has been charged with abusing his worker to the point when suicide seemed like the only way to escape the maltreatment.
Recently, the Kuwaiti Appeals Court reduced the sentence - Opens in new tab of a Kuwaiti woman who beat her Asian maid to death from 15 to 7 years. The woman beat her maid with wooden and iron objects and then dumped her in a bathtub where she suffered for 10 hours until dying, yet the Appeals Court reduced the woman's charge to merely "beating that led to death". The Kuwaiti "justice" system seems more interested in cases where Kuwaiti nationals are the victims of a crime.