A Bengali housemaid committed suicide on Saturday in the home of her employer in Al Hashmi Al Shamali, Amman, according to security sources. An investigation of the incident has been launched.

The source told Roya that the maid was found dead in her employer’s house with a scarf wrapped around her neck.

A study has found that in the decade between 2006 and 2016 forty eight of the sixty three (76 percent) death cases of housemaids were due to unnatural causes. Among the reasons were suicides, sexual abuse and old injuries, the Jordan Times reported.

The director of the Domestic Workers’ Complaints Division at Adel Centre for Legal Aid, Hussein Omari, confirmed that investigations into cases involving domestic workers are normally “superficial”, noting that the numerous incidents are usually classified as “accidents” by investigators.

Earlier in September 2017 the Minister of Labour, Ali Al Ghazzawi, put a moratorium on the recruitment of Bengali housemaids. The reason behind it is the inability to provide mental health clearance to Bengali housemaids which was problematic for housemaids and hosting families alike. This step came in an effort to regulate the market for domestic workers in Jordan.