Sri Lanka blacklists agent who recruited tortured housemaid
September 1, 2010 07:35 am
LPD Ariyawathi, who returned from Saudi Arabia with 24 nails inside her body, is treated at a hospital in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. AFP
Authorities investigating how a Sri Lankan maid working in
Sri Lankan officials also have asked Saudi authorities to investigate the agent
in the kingdom who was involved in getting the job for the maid, said Mangala
Randeniya, deputy general manager of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign
Employment.
If necessary,
The bureau has ordered that the Saudi agent, who must be registered with local
authorities here, be temporarily removed from a list of authorised agents.
The employer has been blacklisted, so neither the agent nor the employer can
recruit in
The case of LPD Ariyawathi, 50, has drawn worldwide attention, prompting the
president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to order an investigation.
Local newspapers have been running the story throughout the week, a few days after Ms Ariyawathi revealed that her employer had forced 14 nails and five wires into her body.
Thousands of Sri Lankan women are employed in the
Ms Ariyawathi is being treated at
He said he did a three-hour operation and removed all except four thin pins,
two in the forearms and two in the arms as they were too close to the bones.
“We took into consideration the surgery versus benefits and decided to let
them be so that the body could adjust to them,” he said.
He said the injuries were probably not self-inflicted.
“Usually if a right-handed person inflicts injuries on herself, they would most
be on the left side – but it is not so in Ariyawathi’s case. Her injuries are
all over her body,” the surgeon said.
Ms Ariyawathi’s son-in-law, H Gunapala, speaking by telephone from the hospital,
said that when she returned to
“When asked what was wrong, she said that she had trampled thorns from the
date tree.
“She was afraid to state the truth because the family was opposed to her going
to the
It was the next day when she was taken to a private doctor that she said she
had been abused.
“She didn’t have any mental problems at the time she left
On Monday, women promoting the rights of migrant workers demonstrated outside
the Saudi Embassy in
The Saudi Arabian ambassador and his counselor were unavailable for comment,
despite repeated calls to the