Demo demanding SArabia investigates hammering of nails into maid

Описание: (30 Aug 2010)
1. Various police outside Saudi Arabia Embassy in Colombo
2. Cutaway sign reading 'Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia'
2. Protestors holding placards outside embassy
3. Protestors holding banner
4. Women holding banner, protesting and speaking into loudspeaker
5. Mid protestors
6. Mid woman signing petition
7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rev Baddegama Samitha, Buddhist monk:
"I appeal to the international community, please raise this question internationally. We are not against the Saudi people but we are against these barbarian acts and also we appeal to the Saudi government, take proper action and take these culprits and the barbarians and the criminals to the book."
8. Mid police outside embassy
9. Mid press surrounding policeman outside embassy
10. Various protestors
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Kumuduni Samuel, founder, Sri Lankan NGO Women's and Media collective:
"We are demonstrating today to ask for justice for the lady who was tortured by an employer in Saudi Arabia so we are asking the Saudi government to bring the perpetrators to justice. We also say to the Sri Lanka government that all workers going to Saudi Arabia or elsewhere for migrant labour, particularly women migrant workers must be protected. Their right to work must be ensured, but their right to work with dignity and security and safety must be ensured by the Sri Lankan government."
9. Mid protestors
10. Police line watching protestors
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Ranjan Ramanayaka, Ratnapura District MP:
"There are nearly five hundred thousand, that means five lakhs (unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand) people, housemaids working in Saudi Arabia. According to my knowledge, forty percent of those people are suffering. They are not getting salaries right time. They face rape, sexual abuse, torturing, hitting, those kind of things."
12. Mid protestors with press around
STORYLINE
Hundreds of Sri Lankans and rights activists protested in front of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Colombo on Monday, demanding that Saudi authorities conduct a proper investigation into the alleged hammering of nails into the body of a maid employed in the Arab country.
Protesters say they want the Saudi authorities to arrest the family that it claimed hammered nails into the body of L.G. Ariyawathi, a Sri Lankan maid who had been employed in the country for five months.
On Friday, doctors removed 13 nails and five needles from her body, after three hours of surgery.
The nails ranged in length from one to two inches (2.5 to 5 centimetres) while the needles were about one inch (2.5 centimetres) long.
They were removed from her legs and forehead.
The 49-year-old was hospitalised with severe pain a week ago just after returning from Saudi Arabia.
She claimed that the family she worked for punished her by heating the nails and needles before sticking them into her.
About 1.5 (m) million Sri Lankans work abroad, many as maids or drivers, to earn more than they can in their own impoverished country.
Nearly 400,000 work in Saudi Arabia alone.
"They are not getting salaries right time. They face rape, sexual abuse, torturing, hitting, those kind of things," Ranjan Ramanayaka, the MP for Ratnapura District said.
Sri Lanka's Foreign Employment Bureau said Ariyawathi had been too afraid to complain about the abuse to Saudi authorities, fearing that her employers might not let her return home.
Deputy Minister of Economic Development Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said the government would report the matter to the Saudi government and provide her with compensation.

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