Saudi Arabia Urged To Investigate and Bring To Justice The Persons Torturing Housemaid

A combo image shows on the left an X-ray exposing nails inserted into a hand of L.T. Ariyawathi by her former employers in Saudi Arabia. On the right, the abuse victim is checked by a nurse as a police woman writes the report.

By Mohammed Rasooldeen
The Arab News
RIYADH: Sri Lankan officials strongly urged authorities in Saudi Arabia on Friday to investigate and bring to justice the persons responsible for torturing L.T. Ariyawathi, a 49-year-old Sri Lankan housemaid by heating up nails and needles and pushing them into her legs, arms, hands and forehead.

The maid said the Saudi couple she worked for in a Riyadh household committed the crime as a form of punishment. The couple has not been identified and Saudi officials were not available for comment on Friday.

Lankan Justice Ministry sources told Arab News on Friday that legal counsel would be provided to the maid to file a case in Saudi Arabia over the incident.

"The Bureau (of Foreign Employment) will make all arrangements to take her to Saudi Arabia to testify," said L.K. Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

The matter may also be taken up with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations, Lankan officials added.

Ariywawathi flew back to Sri Lanka last week and was admitted to Kamburupitiya Hospital in Matara district, 140 kilometers from Colombo.

Doctors in Sri Lanka removed on Friday 13 nails and five needles from the maid's body. Six needles in her hands reportedly could not be removed because the procedure would damage nerves and arteries.

Hospital Director Prabath Gajadeera said the maid has suffered injury to nerves and muscles but no damage to vital organs. The maid is in stable condition and said she feels much better without the nails and needles embedded in her flesh.

Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris met with Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Sri Lankan Abdul Rahman Al-Jammaz in Colombo on Friday to discuss the incident.

Doctors who performed the surgery have been informed to provide a medical report to the External Affairs Ministry to send to the Saudi government in order for them to take appropriate action against those responsible for the sadistic crime.

Confirming the arrangement, an official from the Labor Welfare Department at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh told Arab News that the mission will go into action once it receives the report from Colombo.

"We cannot deal with the Saudi sponsor directly," he said. "It has to be done through the Saudi foreign ministry."

According to the work contract signed by Ariyawathi, the local agent in Riyadh is Diamond Star Recruitment Bureau in Sweidi district while the Sri Lankan agent is New Diamond Star Manpower based in Colombo.

The Lankan government has reportedly forwarded testimony from the maid to Saudi authorities.

On Sri Lankan television channel Newsfirst Sirasa, the maid showed the marks where the nails had gone through. The maid, identified as 50-year-old Ariyawathie, said that there were too many people to serve in the house where she worked.

“I had to work continuously since I had to do the chores of all the occupants and when I wanted to take rest due to tiredness, they inserted the nail in my body as a punishment,” she said.

“I had to work from dawn to dusk. I hardly slept. They beat me and threatened to kill me and hide my body.” She added that she arranged her travel documents to return home on her own expense. “They were really devils with no mercy at all,” she said.

According to records at the Sri Lankan Embassy, the maid came to the Kingdom on March 25. The diplomat said that the sponsor had bypassed the mission and made his own arrangements to send the woman home. “We can only deal with cases that come up before the mission,” he said. However, he added that the mission would take action following the complaint submitted to the embassy from Colombo.

The maid had come to Saudi Arabia after being registered at the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE).