Singapore jails Indonesia maid for menstrual blood in coffee

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Singapore – A Singapore court on Tuesday sentenced an Indonesian maid to one month in jail after she admitted adding her menstrual blood to her employer’s coffee.

Jumiah, 24, who goes by one name, pleaded guilty to committing the act last August while preparing coffee for the man who employs her, in the belief that he would start treating her better after drinking the concoction.

She had collected her menstrual discharge in a plastic bottle.

“Domestic helpers are in a position where they can do great harm to their employers because of the trust put on them,” district judge John Ng told a solemn-looking Jumiah through an interpreter.

According to court documents obtained by AFP, Jumiah had intended to mix her menstrual discharge into the drink of her employer’s mother after being frustrated by her demands.

The Indonesian, who had previously asked to be transferred to another employer, had been told by a friend that the elderly woman would become nice if she drank the concoction containing the blood.

However, the helper changed her mind and mixed her menstrual blood with her employer’s coffee, hoping that he would start treating her nicely and allow her to seek a change of employer.

Jumiah admitted to the act after the employer and his mother confronted her with the plastic bottle containing the discharge, which she initially claimed was tea and medicine.

Thousands of women, many of them from impoverished villages in Indonesia, the Philippines and India, work as domestic helpers in affluent Singapore.