Marriage offer for rape victim
By EUNICE del ROSARIO
Published: 26th September 2006
A BAHRAINI man reportedly yesterday declared his love and proposed marriage to a Filipina housemaid, who claimed he repeatedly raped her over the last six weeks. A Philippine Embassy spokesman said the marriage proposal came two days after Marilen Gempesaw ran away from her employer’s flat in Muharraq, claiming she was raped up to seven times by the man.
But when the 35-year-old maid refused his proposal, he agreed to hand back her passport, provide her air ticket back to Davao, southern Philippines, and give her BD60 for “compensation”.
Marriage offer for rape victim
By EUNICE del ROSARIO
Published: 26th September 2006
A BAHRAINI man reportedly yesterday declared his love and proposed marriage to a Filipina housemaid, who claimed he repeatedly raped her over the last six weeks. A Philippine Embassy spokesman said the marriage proposal came two days after Marilen Gempesaw ran away from her employer’s flat in Muharraq, claiming she was raped up to seven times by the man.
But when the 35-year-old maid refused his proposal, he agreed to hand back her passport, provide her air ticket back to Davao, southern Philippines, and give her BD60 for “compensation”.
“From BD500 compensation, it went down to BD60 because he said he couldn’t afford any other amount,” said the embassy spokesman.
“The employer also denied ever raping his maid, but admitted to have fallen in love with her.
“According to him, they had a relationship and that he’s ready to marry her.”
Ms Gempesaw, who insisted she did not have a relationship with her employer, left for the Philippines last night after agreeing not to file a police case against her employer.
“I do not want to stay in Bahrain anymore. I just want to go home,” she said.
“I do not want to marry him. I do not love him.”
A medical test conducted on Sunday determined that Ms Gempesaw was not pregnant with the man’s child.
The maid ran away from her employer on Saturday at about 6am by jumping out of his flat’s second floor window, in Muharraq, as he and his 12-year-old son slept.
She said that she feared for her life after her employer threatened to “stab me in the stomach” if she ever got pregnant.
“I jumped from the window early in the morning and walked to the embassy,” she said.
Ms Gempesaw first arrived in Bahrain in June this year to work for another Bahraini family. She said left her first employer after two months and returned to her agency because “work was too hard”.
The recruitment agency then found her a new family to work for, a father and son who live in Muharraq.
Sources said that the man’s Filipina wife had left him and his son in Bahrain for good and went back to the Philippines.
Embassy officials held meetings with the Bahraini sponsor and said that they had to support Ms Gempesaw’s wish to not file charges and just return home.
The matter will no longer go to court, said the spokesman.
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