SLBFE seeks compensation:

State level action against maid torture

Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) General Manager H. Batagoda yesterday said they will take state level action against the Suadi Arabian employer who tortured a housemaid from Sri Lanka with iron nails. Batagoda said, the Bureau informed the Sri Lankan Emabassy in Riyadh and the Saudi Arabian embassy in the country about the incident.

” The Bureau will take every action to get maximum compensation from the employer for the inhumane treatment he and his family had inflicted on the maid by inserting nails in her body,” he said.

Doctors in Sri Lanka recovered 23 iron nails from her body at the hospital. Batagoda said, the maid did not complain about her being tortured by the employer at the airport when she arrived in the country on Saturday.

She informed about it after she was admitted to Kamburupitiya Base Hospital. ” We sent the Bureau’s Matara Branch OIC Buddhi Hiththatiya to record a statement from the victim about what had happened,” he said. Asked if the Bureau will pay compensation for her injuries, Batagoda said, the Bureau will pay her insurance and hospital bills until she gets her dues from her Saudi employer.

The Bureau will blacklist both the employer and the party that sponsored him with immediate effect. The victim said, the employer and her family tortured her by inserting iron nails because she could not understand their language.

”I could not understand their orders and they were angry,” she said.

CW