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| Wednesday, 8 December 2004 |
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by P. Krishnaswamy A project to help Sri Lankan expatriate housemaids languishing in safehouses at our Embassy in Kuwait has been launched by the Society for Love and Understanding (SFLU), a subsidiary non-profit company of the Ceylinco Consolidated. The SFLU is engaged in extending humanitarian assistance to the needy and the unfortunate sections of the population. A five member team of the company, headed by its Legal Director, Thushari Weerasinghe, visited the Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait on October 29 to observe the condition of the nearly 100 expatriates housed in the Embassy safehouse and to extend necessary humanitarian assistance. The team which felt the dire necessity among of some them to return home immediately made arrangements for their return providing air passage and other basic facilities, Thushari told the Daily News. So far 12 stranded housemaids have arrived in three batches, some of them in a critical health condition, Thushari said, adding that more expatriates are awaited in the coming weeks. She said that the circumstances which rendered them stranded, the tales that unfolded with regard to their escapade and the physical and psychological tortures suffered by them were most heart-rending. Many of them have suffered extreme physical torments and need long time hospitalization for full recovery and provision of rehabilitation assistance thereafter, she said. Their team, during their one week stay in Kuwait, distributed 125 packages containing clothes, bed spreads, towels, soaps and essential medicines, she said. The condition of one of the returnees, Chandrika Kumari (25), who broke her skull and spine in an effort to escape from her employer is very precarious. She remained warded in the Al-Raji Hospital, Kuwait for nearly one year with skull and backbone damages and paralysed limbs and was brought here in a wheel chair accompanied by an Indian nurse attached to the hospital. She is now warded at Ceylinco Home Nursing Pvt. Ltd under the patronage of the SFLU. Her air passage alone cost Rs. 307,450.00, she said. Being the only child of their parents who are extremely poor, she went two years ago seeking greener pastures after mortgaging their house. According to available information, she jumped from the upper storey of her employer's house in an effort to escape. The SFLU has made arrangements to redeem the mortgaged house for the bereaved parents, Thushari said. Vinodhini, another housemaid who has been brought back by SFLU also had suffered a similar fate while several others among the stranded expatriate workers had faced problems of a lesser degree. |
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