A 37-year-old Indian woman in Singapore was on Thursday sentenced to 16 weeks' jail after she pleaded guilty to repeatedly punching her domestic helper, also from India, as she was unhappy with her work, according to a media report.
Monica Sharma also threw vomitus at the face of the 25-year-old victim, The Straits Times reported.
The victim, employed by Sharma's husband, started working in the family's condominium apartment near River Valley Road on January 20, 2021.
The maid was cleaning some toys in the living room on April 10, 2021, when Sharma raised her voice as she was not pleased with how the younger woman was performing the task.
She then punched the helper's face three times.
Sharma's husband, who was nearby, tried to stop the assault and apologised to the victim for his wife's behaviour, the report said.
Instead of stopping, Sharma took a toy to hit the victim's head once.
According to the court documents, she also threw vomitus at the younger woman, but court documents did not disclose its source.
Deputy public prosecutor R Arvindren said that the maid suffered injuries, including a swelling over her left eyebrow and a bruised nose.
The helper snapped pictures of her own injuries and sent them to her agent in India, who then forwarded the photographs to some contacts in Singapore.
The police were alerted the next day.
Officers went to the apartment and the maid was later seen at Changi General Hospital. She was discharged soon after.
On Thursday, the DPP urged the court to sentence the housewife to at least five months in jail, stressing that the abuse took place in the privacy of her home, making it difficult to detect.
Defence lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu pleaded for leniency, informing the court that Sharma is prone to anxiety attacks and had attended a few sessions at The Centre for Psychology.
Sharma's bail was set at 10,000 Singaporean dollars on Thursday, and she is expected to surrender herself at the State Courts on May 23 to begin serving her sentence.
Several such incidents of physical and sexual assaults have come to the limelight where Indian couples or individuals have been held guilty.
In March this year, a 38-year-old Indian-origin woman in Singapore was sentenced to 10 months of prison term for abusing her maid.
She had, as mentioned in the legal documents, applied foundation powder to her domestic help's face to cover up bruises from the police.
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