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Last Updated: Monday, 24 November, 2003, 09:17 GMT
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BBC NEWS
Work is torture for Sri Lanka maids
Frances Harrison
BBC correspondent in Colombo
What makes Kusuma cry is not the memory of repeated assaults but the look on
her children's faces when they saw her in hospital.
"After three months, I asked Madam for my salary and she started to beat me
with iron bars and wooden sticks," the maid explains of her time in Saudi
Arabia.
"Sometimes she would take a hot iron and burn me or heat up a knife and put it
on my body."
Kusuma is still trying to understand why her employer treated her this way when
she had not done anything wrong.
Kusuma says that one day her employer just tired of her. The employer said they
were going to the police station and that Kusuma would be arrested.
Instead she just put her on a plane back to Sri Lanka, knowing she would never
be prosecuted for torturing her.
Blacklisting
Sri Lankan Minister of Labour Mahinda Samarasinghe assures maids that the
government "has been taking these issues up with the relevant authorities and
they have been in the main responding positively".
However, labour activists say it is essential Sri Lanka operates a blacklisting
system for rogue employers.
The minister says that will depend on the co-operation of the Saudi
authorities, who have not yet agreed.
A recent survey by Colombo University found a quarter of Sri Lankan maids had
suffered problems such as abuse or lack of payment while abroad.
When I went to his bedroom he closed the door and removed my clothes and his.
When I tried to resist he threatened to kill me
Soma, Sri Lankan maid
The Bureau of Foreign Employment runs a counter at Colombo airport to help
returning maids with problems.
It says on average 50 a day come back in distress.
Lebanon does operate a blacklist system for bad employers, but that did not
help 41-year-old Soma, who recalls repeated rapes by the 18-year-old son of her
female employer.
"When I went to his bedroom he closed the door and removed my clothes and his.
When I tried to resist he threatened to kill me," she says.
Soma says she begged him to spare her on the grounds that she had a son his age.
"Another day, his four friends came to the house. When I took tea to the room
they closed the door and kept me on their laps and started to touch my body and
abuse me," she says in tears. All the men then raped her.
There was little comfort from Soma's employer, who seemed to think she had
employed a prostitute for her son rather than a cleaner for her house.
"I complained to his mother and she just said, 'I will give you pills to make
sure you don't get pregnant' and she beat me."
Soma eventually escaped from the flat and walked for four hours until she met
by chance a Sri Lankan couple who took her home, fed her and took her to the
embassy.
Although the rapes were reported to the embassy and police, Soma was just put
on a plane home. Nothing happened to her rapists.
Training efforts
"We are not in a position to say, 'Look here, ensure that all of these things
are in place otherwise we will not send our people'," says Minister
Samarasinghe about the need for better insurance and health cover if something
does go wrong.
Migrant workers make up the largest net foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka
and the country has a huge unemployment problem, so it often cannot dictate
terms to richer nations.
Training the maids about what to expect is a key issue.
"If a person is trained at the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, I don't
see that person will have a problem," says Shoaib Abdeen, who runs the Mount
Lavinia school for maids.
The government says all women going to Arabic countries have to take basic
language courses and learn cooking.
Those going to the more lucrative markets of Singapore, Hong Kong and Cyprus
get extra classes like map reading.
The maids are advised not to run away from their employer if they encounter
problems but maintain a positive attitude.
Given the high failure rate of women workers overseas, it might be better to
teach an escape plan should the need arise.
For legal reasons Kusuma and Soma are not the maids' real names
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/3204297.stm
Published: 2003/11/24 09:17:28 GMT
© BBC MMX
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