Kuwait’s Public Prosecution has asked a court to impose the death penalty on a Filipina domestic worker accused of killing an 18-month-old child last December in Sabah-Al Salem.

The worker is accused of placing the toddler in a washing machine, resulting in his death.

Kuwaiti media reported 29 January that a representative from the Public Prosecutor’s Technical Office presented the case to the Kuwaiti Criminal Court and the prosecution stressed it would seek “no leniency” in applying the law.

The Filipina will also undergo further psychiatric evaluation.

Meantime, the call for capital punishment has drawn varied reactions from overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait, with many citing mistreatments of Filipino workers in the country.

The accused, from Cagayan province in the Philippines, had been working in Kuwait since 2015.

Initial reports stated the child’s parents found their son after hearing his screams. The 18-month-old was rushed unconscious to a hospital but died shortly after.

While the worker initially confessed to the crime, claiming she acted out of frustration because the child was “annoying,” more recent reports indicate she has denied the charges, now claiming the child drowned in a bucket of water.

Forensic reports, however, showed no fractures on the infant’s body.

In a statement on Thursday, 30 January, Philippine Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Undersecretary for Foreign Employment and Welfare Felicitas Bay said that the DMW, through the Migrant Workers Office in Kuwait, has provided legal counsel to the domestic worker since the onset of the case.

“We have been in constant communication with her family as soon as we learned of the OFW's situation and have also extended financial assistance to them,” the DMW Undersecretary added.