Kuwait notified on Lankan maid’s plight

The Internal Affairs Ministry of Kuwait has been notified about a Sri Lankan woman who has been working in Kuwait for 13 years without receiving any payments said L.K. Ruhunuge, Additional General Manager SLFEB.

The Additional General Manager of the Foreign Employment Bureau said that the person in question was sent to the appropriate departments after the interfering of officers from the Kuwait embassy.

Ada Derana in a article yesterday reported of the situation of the fifty seven year old Kamalawathie Katawala who had been working for her sponsor since 1997. (Kuwait Times had reported yesterday that she worked for 17 years. However, the Colombogovernment’s records show a 13 year time period). She landed a job in Kuwaitbefore the Gulf War in 1990 - at first working for an Egyptian family.

Struggling to accomplish her dream of buying a house, she embarked on another overseas challenge. She obtained a new visa for Kuwaitjob. This time, she ended up working for whom she calls ‘merciless employers’ in Jahra. Between stifled sobs, Kamala narrated her ordeal to the Kuwait Times through an interpreter as she could only communicate in Arabic and her native Sinhala language.