Published Date: July 15, 2010 
By Muna Al-Fuzai,  Staff Columnist, The  Kuwait Times - Local Spotlight
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A Sri Lankan lady, whose misfortune had led her to work abroad as a maid was rushed to a hospital 100 miles from her home-land's capital, Colombo, with severe pain after returning home from Saudi Arabia where she took a job last March.  It was subsequently discovered that the family she had worked for would regularly punish her by hammering nails and needles into her body.  

Doctors at the hospital have done a great job, being able to remove 13 nails and 05 needles from the Sri Lankan woman's body, principally from her legs and forehead.   The nails ranged in length from 01 to 02 inches while the needles were each around an inch long.

I believe that this lady is a unique example of a true survivor and I think she is really lucky to be alive at all, with doctors saying that she is still recovering from her ordeal. 

What happened to her in Saudi Arabia must not be forgotten  simply because she didn’t die.  I strongly believe that the Sri Lankan Government must act  not only on behalf of this woman but of every Sri Lankan woman working abroad who could become a target for warped people like those employers.  May be its time for stronger laws against single women traveling abroad for menial jobs without contracts or health insurance?

Now, since we have a story and a woman who was close to death we need to demand that the Asian governments stop sending any more of its citizens to work in menial jobs with no insurance, contracts or guarantees – and the Asian nation’s embassies must show more interest in what is happening to their countries’ citizens once they reach the host country.  While I was reading about this horrific and cold-blooded crime, I was trying to imagine how this woman felt, how much  pain she was forced to endure and how she was forced to keep her mouth shut, all without anyone at all noticing her plight – nobody!  How can that be possible?  And what should be done now?
I also believe that the Sri Lankan government should hire a lawyer on behalf of this woman to look into her case and bring it to court – nobody should let this subject drop for any reason – and if this woman’s allegations against the family she worked for are proved to be true, then they must be punished.

Now I must say that I don’t think it’s fair to force this woman to pay a lawyer’s fees and thus her government must be the party to pay for her legal representation, not only to demonstrate how much it cares about this woman as a maid, but to show that they have their expatriate citizens’ best interests at heart and that they may consider sending no more women to work abroad until the matter is resolved.  All this would show the Sri Lankan government’s seriousness in caring about such important issues and about its citizen’s lives.  The labour attaché at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh said that the embassy has requested a meeting with Saudi officials and has informed authorities who it insists must take action against this woman’s former employers.
 I don’t know how many more lives must be lost or abused until Asian governments take more action, save and protect their citizen’s lives.  This Sri Lankan lady is lucky to have escaped and to be alive, but how many more like her will that sort of luck …… in such horrific abuse cases in any part of the world?