Alka Mandloi, 43, appeared in court Tuesday to face seven counts of abusing her maid Drona Rai, 25, over a three-month period between September and December 2001.

Mandloi is also accused of using a pair of scissors to leave cuts on Rai's fingers, banging her head against the kitchen wall and hitting her with a mop handle with the maid tied to a chair.

Police said the delay in bringing charges against the Canadian housewife, who is a Singapore permanent resident, was due to the length of the investigation.

The suspect faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

Singapore, where many households depend on domestic helpers from South and Southeast Asia, has imposed tough penalties against maid abuse.

In 2002, a 47-year-old Singaporean man, Ng Hua Chye, was sentenced to more than 18 years' jail and caning for fatally beating a 19-year-old Indonesian, the city-state's only case so far of a maid's death from employer abuse.

Some 150,000 foreign women work here as domestic helpers, mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and India.

From January next year Singapore will raise the minimum age of maids to 23 years and require at least eight years of schooling.

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