A 29-year-old Indonesian woman was jailed for 14 days by a Singapore court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to giving false information to police by claiming she had been raped by her employer.
She said she did it in an attempt to help her to return to her country.
Sumaini had wanted to return to Indonesia, but her female employer had refused to allow her, so she came up with the false rape accusation against the man, the Straits Times reported.
On February 7, the wife was told by the maid that she had been “sexually abused” by her husband on January 15. The woman trusted the worker and accompanied her to file her case with the Serious Sexual Crime Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department.
As a result, the man was arrested and taken to a lock-up at the Police Cantonment Complex. After recording the victim’s statement, the officer in charge checked Sumaini’s mobile phone and found some discrepancies between the statement and text messages on Facebook Messenger between the domestic worker and the employer’s husband.
One line was written by the worker, stating that she missed the man, which suggested they were in a relationship. The officer confronted the maid, who decided to tell the truth and admitted she lied about being raped by the man.
She did, however, admit she had an affair with him and agreed to have consensual sex with him on two occasions. The rape allegation was meant to help her return to Indonesia as she had been stopped from returning by the man’s wife, the worker added.
On May 15 at the hearing, the Indonesian woman, who was unrepresented, said she was remorseful and had realised her mistake.
Upon conviction of giving false information to police, offenders could be jailed for up to a year and fined up to S$5,000.