Arab News: Indian Maid With AIDS Uses Fake Health Reports to Come to Arab Kingdom

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Maid With AIDS Uses Fake Health Reports to Come to Kingdom

Arab News

JEDDAH, 26 March 2006 — A housemaid who tested positive for HIV was

deported to India last week, according to a local Arabic newspaper.

The woman is believed to have come to the Kingdom using forged

health certificates, said her Saudi sponsor who is a teacher in the

Qasim region.

" I discovered by accident that Khurshida, the housemaid from India,

had the HIV virus, " Al-Jazirah quoted the sponsor as saying.

According to the teacher, he badly wanted a maid to take care of his

two children as his wife was also a teacher who got home late in the

afternoon. He therefore sought help from an office which imports

labor, telling them that he wanted a maid from India.

She arrived in Riyadh about two weeks ago. The sponsor received her

at the airport and completed the necessary formalities before they

set out for Qasim.

While traveling, he leafed through the pages of the woman's passport

and found that she had left the Kingdom last year, shortly after her

arrival.

Naturally, he wondered why she had come back so quickly. Reading

further, he found the first sponsor's address and phone number which

happened to be in the same region. After a few hours they arrived at

home where the man's wife and children welcomed him and the new maid.

The next morning, he went to school as usual and when he had time,

he called the maid's former sponsor. His words fell like a

thunderbolt, " Don't keep her with you. Send her away this minute.

She has AIDS. "

The teacher could not speak for a few seconds. He asked: " Are you

sure? What is the proof? "

The other man informed him that because his family needed a good

housemaid, he had gone to India and recruited Khurshida through a

labor-supplying agency last April. He was very particular about her

health and fitness.

She showed him a health certificate stating that she was in good

health and free from all ailments. He brought her home and two days

after her arrival, his wife asked him to take Khurshida to a

hospital for a thorough medical examination. He agreed and took her

where he received a real shock upon learning that she was HIV

positive. After the initial shock, he took immediate steps to get

her deported without telling his family the reason.

The second sponsor, however, wanted to make sure that the charge

being made was not a misunderstanding so he took the maid to a

hospital where it was confirmed that she was HIV positive.

Not wanting a bureaucratic delay, he bought her an airline ticket

and sent her back to India the very next day, the newspaper reported.

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