Hong Kong domestic helper who gave birth in employer's bathroom is arrested after premature baby dies
An Indonesian domestic helper in Hong Kong was arrested after the baby she gave birth to inside her employers' apartment died. Police are investigating suspected infanticide but a police source said the woman may have had a miscarriage.
The woman reported feeling contractions in the early hours this morning before delivering the baby, several months premature, inside a bathroom at the flat at 1am. She told her employer about the birth and the employer called police at about 7.45am.
Officers arrived at the scene in The Orchards on Greig Road and found that the infant was dead.
“An initial investigation showed that the [fetus] had no heartbeat or pulse at the time,” the source added. “It was wrapped with a towel and put in a plastic bucket before being placed on her bed.”
The helper was arrested and then brought to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan for treatment.
Police said the fetus was about 16 weeks old. “Tests are needed to establish how old the [fetus] was,” the police source said.
“Police were told that [the Indonesian woman] suspected she had been pregnant but she did not see doctor,” the source said. The woman was said to have returned to Indonesia in April to get married.
The helper is understood to have worked for the same employer for six years.
Infanticide, or the killing of a child in the first year of its life, is a charge that applies only in cases where the child was born alive.