Mystery Shrouds Death Of Underage Domestic Helper, Suicide Claims Shady

Local authorities over in Lahore are now busy trying to figure out the real cause of the death of an underage domestic helper. Initially said to be a suicide, police found some inconsistencies in the death of the 12-year-old maid.

The household helper was identified only as Marya and was earning a monthly wage of Rs12,000 ($164). Her landlord, identified as Dr. Kamran, claimed that the maid committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan.

But when the family of Kamran alerted the police, investigators at the scene found some inconsistencies. For one, the police found the girl’s feet touching the ground when they inspected the premises. Upon seeing this, the forensic team cordoned off the crime scene and started to collect samples for analysis.

The whole thing did not look like a suicide according to the police. The body of Marya was sent to the morgue for autopsy. As of this writing, no details have been released. The findings will be important to help authorities determine how the 12-year-old girl died.

Hence, officials have now launched a new investigation into the case. Statements from the employer, family members and parents of the victim have been recorded. However, all this is pending until the official postmortem report comes out.

The case is the latest in Pakistan’s dangerous cycle of violence involving domestic workers. Some are sold, exploited, abused, raped, tortured or killed. According to the Islamabad Telegraph, as many as 45 cases of violence against domestic workers have been reported in a few years in Pakistan in the media and by civil society organizations.

The government has done legislation to discourage it but it appears that the cases of violence continue to grow. In select cases, some children die after undergoing severe torture with others even getting poisoned to death by their employers.