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Indonesian maid's torture highlights lack of legal protections
Issued on: 11/08/2023 - 17:15
Video by: Juliette MONTILLY
Beaten, forced to eat animal faeces and chained to a dog cage – the abuse of an Indonesian maid, Siti Khotimah, highlights the government's failure to protect domestic workers at home even as it moves to help those abroad. "They later chained me, on both my legs, my arms and in the neck. They also used handcuffs. My head was smacked to the wall and floor," said Khotimah.
Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country, 87.2%. In fact, it has more Muslims than any other country because of its great population, 275 million. Indonesia is the 4th largest country in the world by population.
Intruder who drove 12-y/o girl to jump from 3rd floor balcony
pleads guilty
CBC News · Posted: Aug 11, 2023 4:59 PM PDT | Last Updated: August 11
Zeinab Mohamed watched a stranger barge into her third-floor apartment in 2021 and lock her 12-year-old daughter Sumaya inside with him. Then, her daughter jumped off the balcony to evade the intruder.
An Ottawa man has pleaded guilty in a case in which he was accused of barging into a third-floor apartment and driving a young girl to jump 10 metres off the balcony.
David White, 58, pleaded guilty Friday in the Ontario Court of Justice to assault, resisting arrest and breaking and entering with intent to commit an indictable offence.
White was sentenced to nine months house arrest and two years probation — a sentence that wasn't enough for the girl's family.
And a gold watch, did he get a gold watch?
"I feel injustice to my daughter," said Zeinab Mohamed, whose daughter Sumaya suffered serious injuries. "I feel like the system is really discriminating [toward] us."
Mohamed said the sentence makes her feel as though the legal system is stacked against people of colour.
"I feel I don't belong ... here — that's what I feel," she said. "I don't belong to Canada."
OK, there are a couple of points here that need to be made. I don't think the Canadian justice system is unfair to people of colour, except for Indigenous people, but it's unfair to all victims. Canadian justice is criminal-friendly and blind to victim suffering.
While Canadian justice is desperately disappointing, it is probably much better for your daughter to be here than in whatever Godless hellhole you came from in Asia or Africa. Anywhere on the Indian sub-continent is a horrible place to be a girl.
The 12-year-old girl jumped off a third-floor balcony at this Ottawa Community Housing building on June 20, 2021, to escape David White. White pleaded guilty to several offences Friday. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
Had recently taken cocaine
Court heard that on June 20, 2021, White broke into an Ottawa Community Housing building on Cooper Street in the city's downtown core.
He'd recently taken cocaine and had been refused entry by his ex-girlfriend to another apartment in the same building. He instead went to the third floor where Mohamed and her daughter lived.
Girl survives 10-metre jump off balcony to evade intruder
Mohamed, who uses a wheelchair, was delivering food to her neighbours when White pushed past her and forced himself inside her apartment.
White blocked the apartment door from the inside, yelling at Sumaya — who was 12 at the time — that everyone in the building, including her mother, was dead.
Sumaya, photographed here, suffered physical and emotional trauma from the incident, the girl's aunt says.
(Submitted by Samsam Ahmed)
Sumaya told her mother she hid in the bathroom but soon realized none of the doors in the apartment had locks. In a moment of panic, she ran past the man to the balcony and jumped about 10 metres down.
Sumaya survived but shattered bones in her ankle, leg and back. For months afterward, she wore a back brace and had pins in her legs to hold the bones together.
'Every aspect of her life has changed'
The Crown attorney said the family's impact statement was one of the most upsetting he's heard.
In it, the family described the significant injuries and intense trauma Sumaya sustained from the jump off the balcony.
"This crime ... dimmed the light in that home," said Samsam Ahmed, Sumaya's aunt, in an interview with CBC. "There is something deep [inside] my niece that isn't there anymore."
Ahmed said the physical injuries sustained during the incident cost Sumaya dearly.
"Every aspect of her life has changed," Ahmed said.
As for White, court heard how he came from an abusive past that led to alcohol and drug addiction. Shortly before he committed the crime, he lost his son to an overdose.
Aren't drugs wonderful? Aren't you glad we have a society that is so open to the use of drugs? Thanks, Justin. You are such a luminary!!!
Doctors believe he was in a mental health crisis at the time and that he feels deep remorse for what he did.
In court Friday, an emotional White apologized directly to the family and said he wanted to make things right by pleading guilty.
Plea bargain best way forward, lawyers say
Both the Crown and White's lawyer said they felt a plea bargain was the best way forward.
One of the key arguments was that White committed the crime in 2021, one year before federal legislation was passed that holds people under extreme intoxication responsible for crimes they commit.
As a result, if the case went to trial, White's lawyer argued he would likely walk away not guilty.
But for the family, that argument rings hollow. "We are still suffering," Mohamed said.
The extreme intoxication law is good but should have been introduced 30 years ago.
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