Plus

Plus

Through hell and back
By Kesara Ratnatunga
Leelawathie (not her real name) is from Pupuressa, just off Kandy. This 43-year-old mother of two grown-up children (a daughter of 22 years who is married and has two children of her own, and a son of 17) is now on a hospital bed pondering her future after a cruel ordeal in Kuwait.

Leelawathie's husband is a labourer on a tea estate, earning approximately Rs.100 a day, four days of the week. On other days when he has no work, the family goes hungry.

Three years ago, Leelawathie left for Dubai in search of employment to help sustain her impoverished family. Finding work as a housemaid she worked for a few months and returned home to help tend to her ailing mother. Having spent all her earnings on caring for her mother - who subsequently passed away - she and her family were once again in dire need of money. Taking a loan to pay for her ticket, she applied to a foreign employment agency to find work in the Middle East, against the wishes of her family. She left for Kuwait in September 2003.

Cruel intentions
Her employer was a woman, separated from her husband and living with her two grown children. Leelawathie's duties were cleaning, ironing, washing clothes and helping around the house, which she did with diligence and to the best of her ability. Regardless of her hard work, the mistress of the house verbally abused her for the slightest fault. Even a fold improperly ironed was met with a barrage of abusive words.

About twice or thrice a week, her employer went into a rage and assaulted her physically hitting her with her hand or more often with a slipper. "This went on for 3 long months, but I thought of my family back home and my obligation to them and tolerated everything," Leelawathie said. One day her mistress grabbed Leelawathie by the neck and screamed at her for not having mopped up a few paw marks made by one of the many household cats.

"The verbal abuse turned physical and I begged and pleaded with her not to hit me, but she just got more and more violent and picked up a broom and started hitting me with it." Tears welling in her eyes, she said, "I stumbled backwards cowering from the blows begging and pleading for her to stop. The last thing I remember is moving towards a window, buckling under the assault."

Imprisoned in a dorm
Leelawathie regained consciousness in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by unknown people with severe pain and swelling in her right ankle. Leelawathie was in a dormitory - more of a holding pen - run by an employment agency elsewhere in Kuwait. It was not the same agency that had found her employment but another, located on the top floor of a three-storey building somewhere in the suburbs of Kuwait. The dormitory of two small rooms, a kitchen and a toilet, were all crammed into the space of about 20 feet by 20 feet.

She was on one of the two beds in a small room shared by 5 or 6 other housemaids of Filipino origin, all of whom had barely enough room to sleep shoulder to shoulder on the floor.

The events that transpired between the assault and her arrival at the agency are still a mystery. However she had received no treatment for her bruises or injured ankle.

She explained that the dormitory was kept locked by the owner - a Palestinian national- who kept the place stocked with adequate food and water but barred anyone from leaving the dormitory of their own free will. There was nothing except a few pieces of furniture and kitchen utensils. No telephone, television, radio or even a clock. The inmates were given over to perspective employers who came in search of housemaids.

Those who did not want their housemaids left them at the dormitory. "Usually there were about 20 or 30 people in the dormitory, but the faces kept changing each day."

She had been given the bed because of her injury and the others helped as much as they could as she was unable to walk. Leelawathie spent 14 days in this condition with not so much as a painkiller for her steadily worsening ankle. There was no possibility of contact with the outside world. She had pleaded several times with the Palestinian manager to take her to a hospital or at least let her contact the Sri Lankan embassy in Kuwait. These pleas had been met with abusive language.

A visit to the hospital
Leelawathie's sister, also a housemaid in Kuwait had learned of her sister's predicament and pleaded with the manager to release Leelawathie, offering to pay all expenses. On the 14th day of her captivity, a Sri Lankan man - a driver by profession - arrived to take Leelawathie to hospital. On the way the driver had warned her not to say a word of what had happened to anybody at the hospital or else she would be taken to the police and would have to stay in prison. He had instructed her to tell everyone that she had fallen in the toilet. Upon admission to hospital the driver had given this story to the doctor and had not allowed Leelawathie to speak.

She spent three days at the hospital where she was treated and a plaster cast put on her injured ankle. The Indian nurses at the hospital had taken pity on her when they heard her plight and had made arrangements for her to get in touch with her sister and the Sri Lankan embassy over the telephone.

“There were other Sri Lankan women in the ward along with me, all housemaids who had had a rough time and had been assaulted by their employers or who had been injured trying to escape in sheer desperation. Some had broken arms or legs and even both. There was a young girl who had come to Kuwait a year ago and had fractured her spine,” Leelawathie said .

Upon discharge from hospital, the same driver arrived to take her back to the agency dormitory. She spent the next month in the dormitory but her foot improved only slightly. She was taken back to the hospital for the scheduled follow-up at the end of one month. The doctor who treated her, on hearing that she had no money, had bought her a crutch at his own expense, to help her regain her mobility.

No respite
Leelawathie's story does not end there. Barely three days after her return from the hospital, the Palestinian manager had had her plaster cast cut open, her still swollen foot wrapped in a cloth bandage and her crutch destroyed. She was then forced into employment as a housemaid in another house.

Less than 8 weeks after the injury Leelawathie was back to washing, cleaning and ironing, but this time with broken bones in her foot and swelling and pain so excruciating she could not stand. Her new employers saw that she was in no condition to work and told her that they would release her to get medical attention. They assured her that they would re-employ her when she was well and able to work again. Having said this, they took her back to the agency.

Back again at square one, she had begged and pleaded with the manager to let her go so that she could go to the embassy and try and get back to Sri Lanka. But he had refused point blank.

A few days later, her luck changed. She was taken to the ground floor of the agency building where two ticketing agents approached her. They said that they had made arrangements for her to be taken back to Sri Lanka. "I felt scared and didn't want to go with them because I didn't know who they were and where they were taking me, but they showed me an airline ticket to Sri Lanka with my name on it."

Leelawathie was taken by car to the airport, from where she called her sister and the embassy and informed them of her situation. To this date does not know who paid and arranged for her return home.

Back on Sri Lankan soil, Leelawathie is currently receiving long overdue treatment for a broken foot. Mentally and physically traumatized, unable to work and having received no salary for her months abroad, she has no means by which to repay her creditors.

Back to Plus