Maid In Hong Kong Jailed For Serving Up Urine

[WhistlingJack]

Reminds me of the case when someone was caught relieving themselves in the office coffee pot...

Maid in Hong Kong jailed for serving up urine

Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:47AM BST

HONG KONG (Reuters) - An Indonesian maid has been jailed for six days in Hong Kong for serving her boss a cup of water containing urine, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of "administering poison or other destructive or noxious substance with intent to injure", but insisted she had used the urine to treat a skin condition and its appearance in her employer's cup was a mistake.

Her boss, Szeto Ching-han, smelled the urine after asking for a cup of water, and then asked the maid to drink it -- which she did. Szeto, however, kept the liquid to have it tested in a lab, the South China Morning Post said.

The defence argued that the maid's employer had not drunk the urine and the substance was not poisonous.

"The only contact the former employer had with the so-called poisonous mixture was the smell," her lawyer was quoted as telling the court.

The magistrate who heard the case said there was no evidence that the maid had suffered any harm after drinking from the cup, but still gave the maid a six-day jail sentence, saying the court "must send a message to the public".

Maids from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are often the subject of court cases in richer neighbours such as Hong Kong and Singapore, but usually as the victims of rape or other abuse by their employers.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

I'd've thought that the fact she was prepared to drink it herself would mean it couldn't have been that poisonous :?

 

[Iris]

My netfriend from India drinks a cup each morning to treat diabetes. I think it's a fairly common thing in some Asian countries.

 

[Anonymous]

Is it a good idea to drink your own urine?

No, there is no benefit whatsoever. Which is handy to remember if you happen to be stranded mid-ocean and someone suggests drinking wee.

Mark Smith and Steven Freeman said they survived for 11 days after their yacht capsized recently in the South China Sea by, among other things, drinking their own urine. But experts argue they probably would have been in better shape if they had stayed away from their own waste.

First the technicalities: there's nothing inherently toxic in urine. "If you don't have any urinary infections, urine is aseptic. It doesn't contain any bad bugs," says Toni Steer of the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge. "I've always heard that if you need to sterilise a wound, then urine is quite good."

But urine is no use for keeping you alive. Remember what the stuff is there for: to get rid of the various things in your blood that you cannot store or use relatively quickly. The kidneys are continually purifying the blood of these extraneous chemicals, and the resulting cocktail is dissolved in water and sent merrily out of the body.

More

 

[James_H]

History repeats itself:

Domestic helper arrested after being accused of putting urine in Hong Kong employer’s drinking water

And another from Singapore (article written by someone entirely unsympathetic).

A few points: maids, a.k.a. 'helpers', 'aunties', 'domestic workers' are incredibly common in Hong Kong. Not all employers treat their domestic helpers badly but the system is very much rigged against them. Such that whatever legal rights they have (which are very few) it's not really possible for them to pursue. The maid has to be at home 6 days a week, sometimes won't have control of her own passport, and is locked in the job until the end of her contract. If she ends the contract prematurely she only has a few days to leave. So if people do want to treat their maids like shit, there's really nothing to stop them doing so. It's a situation that is ripe for abuse and bullying. I have a DW friend who is not allowed to use the air conditioning—this is basically inhumane in a place with the climate of Hong Kong—or take more than one shower a day. Otherwise these rich people she works for will complain endlessly about their water and electricity bills. Due to the small living spaces of Hong Kong, maids also often have to sleep on the kitchen floor etc.

All this is to say that while I don't condone urinating in anyone's water, I can understand why some people might crack.