Maid jailed for uploading TikTok clip of her changing employer's son's clothes

SINGAPORE: While changing her employer's son's clothes, a maid took a video of the four-year-old boy that exposed his buttocks and private parts, and later uploaded the clip on TikTok.

Rike Kusnul Kotimah, 25, was on Tuesday (Jul 19) jailed for three months and one week after pleading guilty to one charge of voyeurism and one charge of theft.

Another charge of distributing the voyeuristic recording was considered for sentencing. There is a gag order on the victim's identity.

The court heard that Rike Kusnul Kotimah started working for her employer on Mar 11. Soon after this, she asked for a transfer, which her employer agreed to on Apr 14.

The employer checked the maid's photo gallery on her phone to ensure there were no pictures of her household and saw that she had taken a photo of a S$50 note placed in front of her husband's pants.

The maid later admitted to taking the S$50 that was left in her employer's husband's pants, which she found while doing the laundry earlier in April. Her employer made a police report on Apr 14.

During the course of investigations, the police discovered that Rike Kusnul Kotimah had used her phone to record a video of the employer's young son while she was changing him.

Between March and April, while at home, she positioned her phone camera about 1m to 2m away and started recording a video while intentionally changing the boy's pants in the middle of the camera's field of vision.

The child's bare buttocks could be seen throughout the video, which was at least 18 seconds long, and his private parts were exposed for a few seconds.

The maid then uploaded the video onto her TikTok account with a caption in the Indonesian language.

The caption, translated to English, read: "Condition for a domestic worker to be successful: Personal necessities borne by the employer, food and date borne by employer, no off day, no Shoppee (sic), whatever things I can request from employer and just believe it, go back to Indonesia with a bag full of money, not a bag full of dirty clothes!"

Rike Kusnul Kotimah claimed that she had taken the video as a memento, court documents stated.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Alexandria Shamini Joseph, who asked for the sentence imposed, said that the maid had intentionally recorded a video of the victim being changed at home when he had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The punishment for intentionally recording a child under 14 doing a private act without his or her consent is up to two years' jail and a fine or caning.

The penalty for theft is up to seven years' jail and a fine.