Sri Lankan housemaid alleges she was forced to swallow nails

D M Chandima, who had gone to Amman a month ago, charged that she was beaten and forced to swallow nails by her employer.

"I took her to hospital. The doctor who examined her asked us to take some X-rays. The report revealed that there were six nails in her stomach. We were told, however, that she will pass out the nails," Hemantha Wijeratne, Head of Labour section of the Sri Lankan embassy in Amman, told local weekly The Sunday Leader.

Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau officials said that they await the doctors' report who reached yesterday Amman from Colombo to examine the victim.

Chandima's husband Sunil Shantha has pleaded authorities to bring his wife back home.
"Today there is no one to help me to bring my wife back home from Jordan. I was able to earn a sum of LKR 40,000 by baking bricks and that amount was also spent for Chandani to go to Jordan and today I am helpless," he told media.

The incident came to light two days after another housemaid returning from Kuwait was found with 14 metal rods inserted to her body.

She was operated Friday at Kurunegala Hospital here and doctors removed 9 metal rods from her right hand and left leg. She will be undergoing further surgery to remove the rest of the metal rods in the next couple of days, doctors said.

In August, another housemaid complained that her Saudi employer hammered 23 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment.

Doctors removed the nails successfully. Around 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 per cent are women.