UAE legal Q&As: Daughter had hospital procedure, now she’s facing abortion charge

A mother overseas asks about the fate of her daughter in the UAE, while a householder asks if they have the right to deduct money from her maid's wages as she keeps breaking things.

I have a maid who keeps breaking and damaging items almost on a daily basis, to the extent that it costs us a minimum of Dh500 a month between damaged clothes (burnt or torn), broken household items (such as dishes or even electronics) and last month, she accidentally dropped the Dh5,000 TV, smashing its screen, which could not be repaired or replaced. Would it be legal for me to deduct a little amount from her salary just to make her pay more attention while working?

Domestic workers, like a number of other groups, such as military personnel, are not governed by the labour law. According to Article 3 of the Labour Law, they operate under a different set of rules overseen by the Naturalisation and Residency Department, and most of these rules are included in domestic workers’ contracts. But under civil law, workers should be committed to any loss or damage that happens to items and property owned by the sponsor, who is allowed according to this law, to deduct a small amount from the worker’s salary, although it has to be done officially and documented by the Naturalisation and Residency Department.

My daughter is a South African citizen who has lived and worked in Abu Dhabi for about four years. She met and started a relationship with a local man and when she started having what she thought was a menstrual cycle, she soon realised something was very wrong and had to go to the hospital. There, she was told she had an infection and needed to undergo a procedure. When she woke up, she noticed something on her bedside table that looked like a growth and was told by the hospital staff that they had sent it for testing and to return the following week to get the results. She was so worried that it might be cancerous. When she was discharged from hospital, she was arrested by police who claimed she had had an abortion. She did not even know she was pregnant. What are the laws in the UAE in this situation? How does she prove she did not have an abortion and it was a miscarriage?

Having a relationship outside of marriage is illegal in the UAE, according to the Penal Code, Article 356, which states that all convicted of having an illicit relationship will be punished with not less than one year in prison and deportation for expatriates. Prosecutors will have to investigate and request medical reports to determine whether it was an abortion. If the medical report details that it was not an abortion, then they cannot pursue this charge, but if it was proved she aborted the baby by taking certain medication, for example, she will be charged with aborting a child. According to Article 340, she would face a year in jail and a fine of Dh10,000 or both, according to the court’s decision. Abortion or not, your daughter will certainly face a charge of having sex outside of wedlock.

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