Having no safe place for delivering her blessed son, Mother Mary finally took shelter in the Stable where she delivered the baby boy Jesus Christ.
Having no other choice to hide her illegal status in Kuwait, recently the young female expatriate in Kuwait finally hid herself in the Bucket to avoid detection from the security personnel, unfortunately for her, she was caught.
Inspite of having her official and legal residence document in order, recently as reported in the local Press, one young Filipina lady was raped by the 2 Kuwaiti Policemen and by one Egyptian who was with them. This Filipina lady was sleeping peacefully in her room expecting no problem from the Kuwaiti security personnel. But even then she was not let to enjoy her freedom.
Now the question comes: Who and which expatriate is safe in Kuwait now? It looks there is no more safe place left for the expatriates in Kuwait now going by the trend of this rape taken place.
The incident was this: These days security checks are very rigid for those who violate the local rules and regulations. Not only on the road but even at your homes at night time security personnel come and check your residence permits, if you fail to open the door of your Flat when they knock at your main door, they have authority even to break the main door and enter your Flat.
As per the report appearing in the local Arab Times dated 25th of this month, at about 3.00 in the midnight there was a knock at the door of one Flat where a Filipina lady of 39 years was alone sleeping while her female colleagues in the Flat were doing night duty. Hearing the midnight knock at her door, the sleeping lady got alerted and opened the main door. To her surprise she noticed a Policeman who entered inside and asked her Civil ID Card to check whether she is a legal or illegal resident of Kuwait. After noticing her status is legal in Kuwait, he went along with her to her bedroom and raped her inspite of her cries and pleas not to do so. Then another Policeman raped her followed by their Egyptian friend as well.
The raped lady then contacted her Philippine Embassy and handed over to Embassy the Handcuff one of the Policemen mistakenly forgot in her room. Philippine Embassy then contacted its Lawyer who in turn contacted the Undersecretary of Interior Ministry. Then immediately all the three culprits were arrested and they are now in Police custody pending trial. Kudos to the Undersecretary for taking such a swift action.
Arresting an illegal expatriate is not wrong but arresting a legal resident is wrong. It is my plea to the Government of Kuwait to put a full stop to the checking of residence status of expatriates at night time when they are sleepinng. The midnight knock has to be stopped, such midnight knocks were introduced in India by that Monster Indira Gandhi during her Emergency Rule in India in 1975, renowned Indian journalist Kuldeep Nayar was one of the victims of such Midnight Knock.
In Kuwait what I noticed is this that mostly the poor Filipinas are the victims of molestations and rapes even by the men in Uniforms. By raping the poor Filipina both the accused Kuwaiti Policemen brought dishonour and shame not only on them but also on their reputed and dignified Uniforms. I cannot understand why Filipinas are subjected to such an inhuman treatment especially by the men in Uniforms. Is it because of their fair complexion or poverty?
The worst type of humiliation Iraqi soldiers inflicted during the first three days of invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, in Kuwait City on poor Filipinas was when many of them were raped and sexually abused. It was inhuman and barbaric. To avoid further raping, on 4th day of the invasion of Kuwait, most of the Filipinas from the City area went underground and disappeared from this area taking shelter elsewhere in Kuwait. When Iraqi soldiers acted like wild animals in Kuwait the whole world condemned Iraqi men in Uniforms. Cannot world take note of Kuwaiti Policemen who failed to act decently befitting the dignity of their Uniforms? Good that this incident came to light openly but who can say there are no more such incidents happened in Kuwait which remained unnoticed due to many reasons? It is a worst crime to commit rapes by the men in Uniforms when they are duty bound to protect the females bodily. This incident brought Kuwait’s image into disrepute because law protectors turned law breakers.
Coming to your house by the Policeman at night time to check your residence papers creates scary feelings in you. This type of checking can be done even during the daytime but surely not at night time. This type of midnight knock at your door creates fear in you even though you may be a legal resident in Kuwait. The gravity of fear into the minds and hearts of expatriates has increased tremendously after the raping incident of a Filipina by the Kuwait Policemen. Because of this incident expatriates like me have lost our confidence in Kuwaiti Policemen. Expatriates like me in Kuwait are not slaves and by working in Kuwait we are not doing a favour on Kuwait and by allowing us to work in Kuwait, Kuwait is not doing a favour on us. It is purely a commercial dealing and no favour is involved in this transaction. It is only a commercial transaction.
The incidents like the Kuwaiti Policemen raping a Filipina creates a very bad image of Kuwait, not only internally but more externally. Kuwait needs more goodwill from all around the globe. During the invasion period of Kuwait, many persons came to me to advise me to withdraw our support to Kuwait giving so many excuses to justify their advice. We Goans under my leadership and initiative organised a heavy movement by holding public rallies and meetings in Goa to raise our voices against Iraq and in support of Kuwait. The ripples of our movement reached even to UN and all over the world evoking anger from Saddam Hussein who was under the impression that India is with him. But thru our movement we put Saddam Hussein into shame and brought pressure on Indian government to forcefully support Kuwait in world forums and outside.
One of the reasons the opponents of Kuwait cited was that Kuwaitis are raping our mothers, sisters, daughters and other females working as domestics in Kuwait adding further that these Kuwaitis should be taught a very good lesson otherwise they will not improve. But I flatly refused to accept their advice and we went ahead in our movement. My answer to them was this: I fully agree with what you said but this is not the time to tackle this issue. At an appropriate time I will handle this issue separately but now we have to go on with our movement against the invasion of Kuwait and we went ahead and succeeded thereby inviting appreciation from Kuwait government and other Kuwaitis.
Hence, Kuwait and Kuwaitis must strive to brighten their image globally by treating expatriates humanely.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
