Charges of U.S. maid held captive due to 'cultural confusion,' lawyer says

Yahoo News Thompson Reuters ^ | April 13 2016 | Sebastien Malo

[xp38]

A Southern California couple accused of forcing an Indonesian woman to work as an unpaid live-in maid are victims of "cultural confusion," their attorney said on Wednesday.

The case against Firas Majeed and Shatha Abbas, who are originally from Iraq, stems from misunderstandings due to money and language differences among the immigrants, defense attorney Douglas Brown told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Majeed, 44, and Abbas, 38, were arrested this month on charges they forced their housekeeper to work up to 18 hours a day without pay in their San Diego-area apartment.

"All the people involved are poor, there are least three languages involved - Bahasa Indonesian, Arabic and English - and there are cultural differences among the parties," Brown said.

"So it's a confusing scenario for all of them," he said.

The housekeeper was removed from the couple's home by agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after she slipped a hand-written note to a visiting nurse in March, according to court documents.

The note said she was being abused, and it asked for help, according to the documents.

Majeed and Abbas, who face federal charges of forced labor, trafficking and document servitude, entered pleas of not guilty last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego.

[GOPJ]

Violent slavery?

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear of one of these stories? You think "Arabs"... Wealthy lowlife Arabs from the Middle East... And 99% of the time you'll be right.

There's a reason for this - it's the same reason our cultures are incompatible with theirs... By 'our' I mean every other culture on the planet.

[Jack Hammer]

Yeah... in Arabic the word for ‘slave’ is the same as the word for ‘Hurray for moslems and to h*ll with everyone else.’

Easy to get them confused.