Arrests made in maid's nail torture, Sri Lankan officials say

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/30/sri.lanka.maid.assault/index.html?hpt=T2

Colombo, Sri Lanka (CNN) -- A Saudi employer and his wife, who are accused of torturing a Sri Lankan housemaid by hammering nails into her body, have been arrested in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, officials at the Sri Lankan External Affairs Ministry said Monday.

Doctors at a Sri Lankan hospital operated for three hours Friday to remove 18 nails and metal particles allegedly hammered into the arms, legs and forehead of a maid by her Saudi employer.

Several countries across the Middle East and Asia host significant numbers of migrant domestic workers, ranging from 196,000 in Singapore to about 1.5 million in Saudi Arabia, according to a report published earlier this year by Human Rights Watch.

Many of the domestic workers are poor Asian women from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Nepal. Widespread abuse has been documented by global human rights groups.

Common complaints include unpaid wages, long working hours with no time for rest and heavy debt burdens from exorbitant recruitment fees, said the Human Rights Watch report.

Isolation and forced confinement contribute to psychological and physical abuse, sexual violence, forced labor, and trafficking, the report said. The abuse often goes unchecked because of a lack of government regulation and protective laws.

[rfranklin]

1. This what a Republican paradise looks like...untrammeled by

regulation and rules.