A SRI Lankan housemaid said her employer in Jordan forced her to swallow six nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months.
“We are awaiting a full report from doctors,” said Kingsley Ranawaka, the head of the Foreign Employment Bureau of Sri Lanka, adding that authorities would decide on the next steps after looking at the medical evidence.
Identified as D.M. Chandima, the maid reported the alleged torture to the Sri Lankan diplomatic mission in Amman, the bureau said.
The report came as another Sri Lankan housemaid who worked in Kuwait accused her employer of driving 14 wire nails into her body as punishment for failing in her work.
The woman, identified only as Lechchami, 38, underwent surgery to have the nails removed after returning home to Sri Lanka, the director of the hospital in the northwestern town of Kurunegala said on Saturday.
The doctor said the woman told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails – some as long as 1.5 inches – into her hands and left leg when she asked for her salary after working for six months.
Police said the case was under investigation. In August, another maid complained that her Saudi employer drove 24 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment. Most of them were removed by surgeons in Sri Lanka.
The Saudi government and private sector officials in Riyadh questioned the credibility of the woman’s allegations.
Some 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 percent are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East, while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong, seeking higher salaries than they would get at home.
Non-governmental organisations report frequent cases of employer abuse of maids who work abroad.
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