Sri Lankan maid tortured by the hand of her slavers- I mean employers

the Guardian wrote:

A Saudi couple tortured their Sri Lankan maid by hammering 24 nails into her hands, legs and forehead, after she complained of a too heavy workload, officials said today.

Nearly 2 million Sri Lankans sought employment overseas last year and around 1.4 million, mostly maids, were employed in the Middle East. Many have complained of physical abuse or harassment. LT Ariyawathi, a 49-year old mother of three, returned home on Friday after five months in Saudi Arabia.

Her family only realised what had happened to her when she complained of pain and they took her to see the doctor, Foreign Employment Bureau officials said.

"The landlord and the wife of the landlord hammered 24 nails into her when she complained of the heavy workload," Kalyana Priya Ramanayake, media secretary of the Foreign Employment Bureau, said.

Ariyawathi has been taken to hospital for surgery to remove the nails, which according to the maid were hammered in when they were hot.

X-rays showed one- to two-inch nails in her hands and legs, with one over her eyes, officials said.

The Foreign Employment Bureau is consulting the attorney-general while the Sri Lankan External Affairs Ministry is to take the matter up with the Saudi government, officials said.

Source.

The only surprising aspect about this case is the fact that it received international attention. In places like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other oil rich Middle Eastern countries millions of immigrants from poor Asian countries are kept in slavery. They lured to come overseas by scouting agencies looking domestic and construction workers and are promised that will make enough money to live in comfort, however when they get to their employers they are stripped of their passports, starved, beaten, raped, and ignored by their embassy when they do managed to escape.

It sickens me that people turn a blind eye to this clear violation of human rights just because these countries have oil.

Edit: More stories of abused domestic workers.

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Good God. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It sounds like it's practically an epidemic and yet this is the first time I've heard about it. Sickening indeed.

This kind of bollocks has been going on for years - it happens in most 'advanced' countries, and because the perpetrators are rich, nobody wants to do anything about it. It's sickening.

Lexin wrote:

This kind of bollocks has been going on for years - it happens in most 'advanced' countries, and because the perpetrators are rich, nobody wants to do anything about it. It's sickening.

Yeah, there was a news article about a Canadian politician and his wife treating their domestic servants like shit. When your rich, it's just seem so easy to treat those "below" you like shit.

I'm looking at you wall street.

Gawd, I remember going to see Sex & the City 2 (I lost the coin toss), which takes place in these countries, and I was pretty damn disgusted at how everything was portrayed. "It's the New Middle East!", one character kept saying. And oh, how excited they were with their four servants who were at their beck and call. The servants who were cast as South Asians. And one even talked about how twice a year, he flew home to see his wife and it was the best thing ever for both of them.

I wanted to strangle the director. That guy would never see his wife, due to the fact he was a legal slave with no passport and no means of getting home, like the thousands of other slaves that they keep. It was absolutely disgusting how they were so blatant about how acceptable it was.

This poor woman. I really hope she's able to get the assistance she needs. And I really hope that something about this case finally brings to people's attention what is going on over there.

Twenty-four nails? Jesus Christ!

XLT-100852.0 wrote:

Lexin wrote:

This kind of bollocks has been going on for years - it happens in most 'advanced' countries, and because the perpetrators are rich, nobody wants to do anything about it. It's sickening.

Yeah, there was a news article about a Canadian politician and his wife treating their domestic servants like shit. When your rich, it's just seem so easy to treat those "below" you like shit.

Ruby Dhalla? A lot of this comes from the fact that the immigration program in Canada through which a lot of Filipina women to get visas requires them to work as nannies for a certain period of time. If nobody wants you as a nanny, you can't stay in Canada. So horrible behavior towards nannies is sadly common because people realize that the threat of giving a woman a bad reference is enough to make her agree to do a lot in order to stay in the country. The woman who takes care of my younger brother nearly couldn't get hired at all because her former employer gave her an awful reference because she refused to do unpaid overtime cleaning one of the parents' offices.

Selenite wrote:

Good God. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It sounds like it's practically an epidemic and yet this is the first time I've heard about it. Sickening indeed.

Less an epidemic and more a disturbing way of life for a lot of people.

Epidemic implies that this started recently and expanded rapidly. This shit has been going on for centuries across the world.

Lapin wrote:

Gawd, I remember going to see Sex & the City 2 (I lost the coin toss), which takes place in these countries, and I was pretty damn disgusted at how everything was portrayed. "It's the New Middle East!", one character kept saying. And oh, how excited they were with their four servants who were at their beck and call. The servants who were cast as South Asians. And one even talked about how twice a year, he flew home to see his wife and it was the best thing ever for both of them.

I have a feeling that I know why this movie wasn't flamed out of theaters, but still, I'm upset that it wasn't. As if I didn't need another reason to hate Sex and the City, even sight unseen.

saeku wrote:

A lot of this comes from the fact that the immigration program in Canada through which a lot of Filipina women to get visas requires them to work as nannies for a certain period of time. If nobody wants you as a nanny, you can't stay in Canada.

Why nannies, exactly?

Also, "this" to everything Mr. Doobie said. Shit like the woman getting nails hammered into her, while atrocious and horrible, isn't new... people who have absolute power over others have been committing horrors like this for a long, long time. Countess Bathory comes to mind.

Malganis wrote:

Also, "this" to everything Mr. Doobie said. Shit like the woman getting nails hammered into her, while atrocious and horrible, isn't new... people who have absolute power over others have been committing horrors like this for a long, long time. Countess Bathory comes to mind.

That would be a good point, but like I said before, people turn a blind eye to this institutionalized slavery because these countries have oil. Or is slavery not a big deal anymore?

Malganis wrote:

saeku wrote:

A lot of this comes from the fact that the immigration program in Canada through which a lot of Filipina women to get visas requires them to work as nannies for a certain period of time. If nobody wants you as a nanny, you can't stay in Canada.

Why nannies, exactly?

It's shitty work that white people won't do for cheap, so the government brings in immigrants to do it through the Live-In Caregiver program.

saeku wrote:

Malganis wrote:

saeku wrote:

A lot of this comes from the fact that the immigration program in Canada through which a lot of Filipina women to get visas requires them to work as nannies for a certain period of time. If nobody wants you as a nanny, you can't stay in Canada.

Why nannies, exactly?

It's shitty work that white people won't do for cheap, so the government brings in immigrants to do it through the Live-In Caregiver program.

No one will nanny in Canada? Shit, that's what half the girls in my family's church do for a living. What is wrong with your children?