A Canadian housewife is facing five years in jail after being charged with abusing her maid in Singapore.

The alleged abuses against the Indian maid include switching on a vacuum cleaner after sticking the hose into the maid's mouth, police said according to Singapore media.

Alka Mandloi, 43, appeared in court earlier this month 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, hitting her with a mop handle with the maid tied to a chair, using a kitchen knife to slash the maid's hands and legs and using an iron to burn the maid's arm. Police said the delay in bringing charges against the Canadian housewife, who is a Singapore permanent resident, was due to the length of investigations.

Kimberly Phillips of the Department of Foreign Affairs told The Asian Pacific Post that Mandloi is being provided with the necessary consular assistance in Singapore but declined to say where in Canada she is from.

Singapore, where many households depend on domestic helpers from South and South-east Asia, has imposed tough penalties against maid abuse. About 150,000 foreign women work in the city-state as domestic helpers, mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and India.