Docs remove nails, needles from allegedly abused maid - Aug 2010
Sri Lankan woman says her Saudi employers drove hot metal into her body
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An X-ray image shows several of the 24 nails and needles driven into the hand of Sri Lankan housemaid L.T. Ariyawathi. Six needles remain in her hands, as doctors feared surgery would cause nerve and arterial damage.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka ? Doctors removed 13 nails and five needles from a Sri Lankan maid who says the couple she worked for in Saudi Arabia hammered them into her body. L.G. Ariyawathi, who was hospitalized with severe pain after returning Saturday from Saudi Arabia, has said the family she worked for punished her by heating the nails and needles before sticking them into her.
X-rays showed that she had 24 nails and needles in her body, said Dr. Keerthi Satharasinghe of Kamburupitiya hospital, about 100 miles from the capital, Colombo. The nails ranged in length from one to two inches while the needles were about one inch long. They were removed from her legs and forehead. "The surgery is successful and she is recovering now," Satharasinghe said after the three-hour procedure.
Satharasinghe said Thursday that the woman's initial puncture wounds had healed over, but that Ariyawathi found it difficult to walk because she had two nails in her knee and two in her ankles. Another needle was in her forehead, and the rest in her hands, he said Thursday. After her surgery, the doctor said six needles in her hands could not be removed because the operation might damage her nerves and arteries, but that they would not be harmful to her.
'They did not allow me even to rest'
Since being hospitalized, Ariyawathi, 49, has described the alleged abuse carried out by her former employers. "They did not allow me even to rest. The woman at the house had heated the nails and then the man inserted them into my body," Ariyawathi was quoted as saying by the Lakbima newspaper. She told the newspaper that she went to Saudi Arabia in March but was paid only two months' salary, with her employer withholding the rest to buy an air ticket to send her home.
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Sri Lankan housemaid L.T. Ariyawathi (left) talks to a nurse while receiving treatment at a hospital in Batticoloa, Sri Lanka. On Friday, doctors removed 18 of the 24 nails and needles in her body.
Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, deputy minister of economic development, said in a statement on a government website Thursday that the 24 nails were "inside the body due to torture meted out by her Saudi employer." Abeywardena said the government would "report about this matter to the Saudi Government and provide her adequate compensation."
'They have to take action'
Nimal Ranawaka, labor counselor at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh, said the embassy had requested a meeting with Saudi officials. "We informed Saudi authorities. They have to take action against the employer," Ranawaka said.
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.
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:2 cents: Seriously, is it the heat over there? Too much curry powder? What the fuck is wrong with the brains of the people living in the Middle East? :disgust
