Balanced response to criminal maids

Sharing information between GCC nations ought to help prevent a repeat of a maid who murdered her employer and killed her victim's toddler.

The case of the maid in Ras Al Khaimah who fatally stabbed her employer and then set the house on fire, killing the victim's two-year-old daughter, encapsulates the worst fears of many who hire domestic help in the UAE. Maids and nannies are a boon in busy households, but it also means inviting complete strangers into the heart of the family home, where parents and children should expect to feel safe.

What made this case more shocking was that the maid, a 23 year old from Ethiopia, had previously worked in Saudi Arabia, where she had been in trouble with the law and was deported. Back in Ethiopia, she applied to work in the UAE and was employed by the Ras Al Khaimah woman, who knew nothing of her background. The double killing happened 10 days after she started work.

Whenever this kind of tragedy occurs, the challenge for the authorities is to strike a balanced response that both acknowledges the gravity of the original incident but also retains a sense of perspective.

As The National reported yesterday, this is exactly the challenge the Federal National Council faces and, indeed, the maid's case has been raised as part of the debate. While that case was the embodiment of every family's worst nightmare, it has be set against the vast majority of situations where employing domestic help works well for everyone involved.

More than 100,000 visas are granted every year for domestic staff to work in the UAE. Most of these workers come from countries that lack comprehensive justice systems, diminishing the prospects of being able to check an applicant’s criminal record. Even if that were feasible, there is disparity between what each culture considers to be criminal conduct.

FNC member Mosabeh Al Kitbi, from Sharjah, made the suggestion that the six nations that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council ought to share information so that at the very least, foreign workers convicted of crimes in one Gulf state will not be able simply move on to another, as the maid in the Ras Al Khaimah case did. This option will not be easy, as the European Union and other multinational federations have discovered, but it seems like a sensible and achievable option that will help keep families safe in the UAE.