RIYADH: A Filipino maid who had received second-degree burns after her female employer allegedly poured water on her body last year, is still crying for justice and repatriation, said a Filipino rights activist.

According to John Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, Pahima ‘Candies’ Alagasi Palacasi, now 23 years old, the case she had filed against her employer has been dismissed. Her employer filed a counter case against her claiming that the maid had fabricated the story and that the boiling water accidentally fell on her.

Palacasi was told by the Philippine Embassy case officer handling her case about the counter complaint.

“But it seems that my ordeal is not yet over,” Palacasi, a native of Pikit, North Cotabato, told the rights group. “I suspect Palacasi has not been properly informed on the development of her case or the case filed against her by her employer. I suspect that her case did not receive proper attention and legal assistance in court during the hearing,” Monterona said.

Monterona has urged the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and the National Union of Peoples Lawyer (NUPL) to look into Palacasi’s case by getting the information and update from the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs (OUMWA) of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and for the House Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs (COWA).

“I am the aggrieved party here, but I am the one to be sent to jail, Palacasi said during a phone conversation,” Monterona said.

The incident happened on May 4, 2014, and Palacasi’s employer took her to a small clinic days after the scalding incident. At the clinic, a Filipino nurse contacted her sister while a cousin who is based in Riyadh helped her escape.

Since then, Palacasi stayed at the Bahay Kalinga, the embassy’s halfway shelter for distressed and maltreated Filipino workers, while undergoing treatment.

According to Monterona, the maid’s ordeal began soon after she arrived at her employer’s house on May 3 last year. She claimed that her employer constantly subjected her to physical abuse apparently because she could not focus on her work as she was still adjusting to the new environment.

“No explanation was given to me why the case was dismissed, but I was informed that there is a hearing on July 7,” Palacasi said. “They are not even bothered to know what I feel like. I am worried about my two children.”