Metal Nails Removed From Tortured Maid

[Xing Cai]

Metal Nails Removed From Tortured Maid

1:39pm UK, Monday August 30, 2010
Andy Jack

Surgeons have removed 16 nails which were hammered into the legs, hands and forehead of a housemaid when she complained her employers were working her too hard.

Sri Lankan L T Ariyawathi had gone to Saudi Arabia to find work last year. After five months in the country, the mother of three returned home deeply traumatised and unable to tell anyone what had happened.

Her family had no idea she had been tortured until they took her to see a doctor when she complained she was in pain. A Sri Lankan Foreign Employment Bureau official said: "The landlord and the wife of the landlord hammered 24 nails into her when she complained of the heavy workload."

X-rays show how the nails were embedded in the body

Ms Ariyawathi said the nails were hammered in after they had been heated by her employer's wife. X-rays showed one to two-inch nails in her hands and legs, and even one over her eyes. The doctor who treated 49-year-old Ms Ariyawathi said there appeared to be no damage to her internal organs. "She is in good condition, she's pain-free and she's very happy," she said.

Housemaid LT Ariyawathi was too traumatised to relate her ordeal

Eight smaller, needle-like nails were left in place because their removal risked causing nerve damage. Sri Lanka's external affairs ministry has said it is taking up the matter with the Saudi government. Around 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70% are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East, while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

[postnew]

A doctors shows a nail extracted from the body of a Sri Lankan housemaid who underwent surgery at a hospital in Matara in the island's south on August 27, 2010 to remove 24 nails allegedly embedded in her body by her Saudi Arabia employer. The victim, L. T. Ariyawathi, 49, alleged that her Saudi employer tortured her and drove nails into her body as punishment. Doctors said there appeared to be no damage to her internal organs. The woman, who travelled to Saudi Arabia in March and returned to Sri Lanka last week. She was deeply traumatised and unable to give full details of her experience.​

 

[silverfox@]

Sri Lankan airports confirm no scanners or detectors. If not they would have stop her from entering the country

 

[Rogue Trader]

More worrying thing is there's no metal detector at the Saudi airport departure. How did they let her get on the plane?