Plus
Beaten,
burnt and battered
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
A severely disfigured
face, several missing teeth, knotted and gnarled scars on every inch of her body,
a still oozing large wound on her leg, broken bones and a shattered life are the
only "gains" for 35-year-old Ratnayake Mudiyanselage Nandawathie after a year's
torture in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Just out of hospital after
almost a two-month agonising stay, Nandawathie is attempting to come to grips
with the fact that she is now a disabled person. She, husband L. Wijeratne and
their two daughters and son aged 13, 11 and nine cannot still figure out how their
lives could change so drastically within a year, leaving them paupers and also
homeless.
"Salli humba karanna gihilla
den thiyena tikath nethiwela," (We have lost even the little we had after going
to earn some money), laments Wijeratne, pleading with The Sunday Times to warn
all those seeking employment in the Middle East about the torture trap they are
getting into.
Nandawathie's tale is tragically
similar to hundreds of others, though it does not make it any easier to bear.
It began last year, when they were struggling to eke out a living from the harsh
land of the dry zone. Nandawathie born and bred in Naula, Matale married Wijeratne,
a farmer from Wanamalgama very close to the Wilpattu National Park.
They had their own little home
and plot of land which Wijeratne toiled to cultivate, sometimes with chillie,
at others with kurakkan. Then came the children.
"I wanted to build a better
home. I wanted a better life for my three children," says Nandawathie explaining
the lure of the Middle East. The sub-agent was like a god and the agent even greater.
After all the paperwork including
the registration with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), insurance
and training, April 18, last year saw her on a plane to Riyadh.
She was a housemaid at a police
officer's home and hardly saw the Baba (master). The mistress was kind to her
and there were three grown-up children. The workload in the three-storey house
was heavy but it was only for two years and the thought of the nice home she would
build for her family made it bearable. The wages promised were 400 riyals (about
Rs. 9,500). The first two months went by, with her wages being paid.
The trouble began in the third month, when for no apparent reason the beatings
began. "The iron was plugged on and when it was searingly hot kept against my
face or my body," says Nandawathie. "The first two or three times it happened
I wept and begged of the mistress to tell me what I had done wrong." But no answers
were forthcoming, with the beatings only intensifying.
The starvation too started.
"In the kitchen, when I was helping her to cook, she would hold the knife to the
fire and cut and burn me. Anything she got into her hand she would use to beat
me up with. The iron stick on which you roast chicken was also a weapon once it
was very hot," she says. Only a few scraps of leftovers were given to her.
Once when the family was going
shopping the mistress asked her for the wages paid earlier, with the promise that
all would be "settled later".
There was no way to get out.
No access to a telephone. Letters from home were not given and she did not dare
ask them to post a letter for her. She was a virtual prisoner being tortured daily.
Whenever she bled profusely she was given coffee powder for the wounds. Fainting
bouts were more and more frequent.
Her pathetic requests to send
her home went unheard. She endured 10 months of cruelty, before she was suddenly
told to put all her bloodstained clothing into two garbage bags . These were burnt.
Though sick and malnourished and losing consciousness on and off, she was asked
to have a bath and get dressed, finally covering herself with a kabhaya (purdah)
provided by the mistress, leaving only a slit open for her eyes. She was told
that she was being taken to the police station.
It was later that she realised
that they had brought her to the airport. She did not have any money or a piece
of clothing, except those on her, to call her own.
Back in Sri Lanka on May 1,
the SLBFE staff at the airport took her immediately to the Negombo Hospital and
notified her husband. Through her haze of pain she recalls Wijeratne vehemently
denying that this was his wife. "He just couldn't believe it," she says in tears,
showing us a photograph taken before her departure of a healthy, smiling woman.
Later taken to Matale Hospital
by her family she says she underwent many operations as "thuwalawala panuwo hitiya"
(her wounds were full of maggots).
The medical reports read: "Multiple
soft tissue injuries and bone injuries following assaults, burns and stabs over
7-8 months. Assaults with iron and wooden bars. Burnt with hot irons and knives.
Severe pallor. Emaciated, dehydrated."
Final medical verdict - permanent
disablement
The SLBFE has paid her Rs.
20,000 as temporary compensation for her medical treatment but her life has come
to naught. "We have been away from our own home in Wanamalgama for two months
now. The elephants have destroyed our home. Our crops are no more. We are in Matale
living off relatives because there is no one to look after me at home. My eldest
daughter attained age when I was in hospital and I couldn't even do our customs
as a mother. The children have not been going to school because they are with
me in Matale. They too do not have anyone to look after them," she whispers amidst
her tears.
"What do we do? Whom do we
turn to?" is her plaintive cry.
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster Editorial