11 / 19 /2010 - One more maid tortured.

http://www.migrant-rights.org/2010/11/19/indonesian-maid-tortured-in-saudi-arabia-another-beaten-to-death/

This week, two cases of severe abuse of Indonesian maids by their Saudi sponsors have surfaced, one of them ending in death and the other in serious injuries.

The first case, of 23-year-old Sumiati BT Salan Mustapa was first reported by the Saudi Gazette. This initial report mentioned that Mustapa arrived in Saudi-Arabia in July to work for a family in Madina. On November 6th Mustapa was admitted to a private hospital in Madina injured from head to toe in an unconscious state. The private hospital was unable to treat her serious injuries and she was transferred to the King Fahd hospital. A worker there told the Gazette that Mustapa’s body “was burned on many places, both legs were almost motionless, some parts of her skin on her head were removed and strong marks of old wounds were on her body including skin loss on lips and head, a fractured middle finger and a cut near an eye.” Mustapa also showed signs of malnutrition or excessive blood loss.

Didi Wahyudri, Indonesia’s citizen protection consul in Saudi Arabia told CNN that Mustapa was abused from the first day of her employment and that she was beaten badly. According to the Al-Watan newspaper report, “In room 365 at the orthopedic ward in King Fahd Hospital in Madina, Mustapa looked deformed as if her scalp had been peeled off….burns are scattered all over her lean body including her upper lip and fingers…she is bandaged all over and could hardly move or speak.”

Report in the online paper Al-Saudia said today (Friday) that Mustapa’s female employer was arrested in connection with the case. According to the Madina police chief, three members of the family were involved in the torture.

While the Saudi regime maintains that this is an “individual case” and that “the media have exaggerated the report”, a new story coming from the Saudi town of Abha puts this into question. According to CNN, on November 11th the body of an Indonesian maid, Kikim Komalasari, was found with signs of serious physical abuse on the streets of Abha. According to Indonesian officials, the employer suspected in the attacks was arrested by Saudi authorities.

These stories of abuse are of the most extreme kind migrant workers endure in Saudi-Arabia, but abuse is not rare. When employers are given unrestricted powers over their workers in the Saudi sponsorship system, this creates an opportunity for abuse. Migrant workers cannot change sponsors even in cases of abuse, but the sponsors can have the workers repatriated at will, or prevent them from leaving the country. Domestic workers are also excluded from the protection Saudi Arabia’s labor laws offer. This abuse happens because little is done to prevent it.

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Sumiati lies in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia. Her employer is accused of cutting off part of her lips with scissors, scalding her back with an iron, fracturing her middle finger, and beating her legs until she could hardly walk

May 2008 - Maid with fingers amputated due to abuse get 600 USD as compensation

Abused Indonesian Maid Gets Paltry Compensation

JEDDAH, 21 May 2008 — A High Court judge in Riyadh, on Monday, awarded SR2,500 in compensation to Nour Miyati, an Indonesian maid whose toes and fingers were amputated following alleged abuse by her sponsor and his wife.

Reviewing a previous ruling, the judge also dropped charges against the wife of Miyati’s sponsor, who had admitted abusing the maid, and overturned the 35 lashes she was sentenced to. Meanwhile, the sponsor was found innocent due to a lack of evidence.

“According to the judge, there was not enough evidence,” said Nasser Al-Dandani, the lawyer appointed by the Indonesian Embassy to represent the maid.

Miyati’s case came to light after her sponsor brought her to a Riyadh hospital in March 2005, afflicted by gangrene in her fingers, toes and a part of her right foot.

She initially claimed her sponsor tied her up for a month in a bathroom and beat her severely, injuring her eyes and knocking out some of her teeth.

However, investigators — who questioned her without the presence of Indonesian Embassy representatives, lawyers or members of the National Society for Human Rights — later claimed the maid had changed her testimony.

Miyati was, subsequently, charged with making false accusations and imprisoned for a few days.

She was then transferred to a shelter at Nahda Women’s Charity Society where, according to social worker Hind Al-Ismaili, she could not take proper care of herself because of her injuries.

It was then that Al-Dandani secured her release from the shelter.

Miyati’s case was delayed several times as her sponsor and his wife repeatedly failed to attend court hearings, prompting the Riyadh Principality to issue an order forcing them to come.

According to sources, the sponsor adopted several tactics to disrupt the case, including a threat to file a SR1 million defamation suit against the maid.

Further to this, in December 2005, a judge at the Court of Summation sentenced Miyati to 79 lashes for making false accusations against her sponsor and his wife — a ruling that was reversed in April 2006.

Speaking about the ruling, Al-Dandani said, “The judge did not consider the injuries and amputations had been caused by the sponsor and his wife despite the medical report… He did not take into consideration that she had not been paid her salary for 18 months, that she was in good health when she came to work here and that when her toes and fingers turned gangrenous she was not taken to hospital early enough.

“Even her broken teeth, her injured eye, which doesn’t function properly, and hearing loss were not considered proof of abuse.”

Judges compensate injuries and lost limbs in car accidents and medical malpractice according to a standard value, he said, adding that according to some estimates, Miyati deserved at least SR400,000.

“Although, we did not ask for a specific amount, we expected it to be fair,” said Al-Dandani.

“The only thing the judge looked at was the report by a committee appointed by the court to evaluate compensations for accidents. This committee of four men did not once see Miyati or speak to her. I don’t know what they based their evaluation on and how the judge could accept that,” Al-Dandani added, saying that he will appeal the ruling at the Court of Cassations.

Source :

http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=110110&d=21&m=5&y=2008

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Saudi maid verdict 'outrageous'

Human Rights Watch has called on Saudi judges to overturn a decision to drop charges against a Saudi couple accused of severely abusing an Indonesian maid.

A judge in Riyadh awarded $670 damages to the maid, Nour Miyati, but dropped all charges against her employers.

The female employer, who admitted the abuse and was originally sentenced to 35 lashes, had her sentence overturned.

Human Rights Watch said the ruling on Monday was "outrageous", and sent "a dangerous message" to Saudi employers.

Ms Miyati, 25, contracted gangrene after allegedly being tied up for a month and left without food in 2005. She had to have several fingers and toes amputated.

New York-based Human Rights Watch called for an appeals court to "impose stiff penalties on the employers, including imprisonment, and payment of significant financial compensation".

Saudi officials have not commented on the report.

'Impunity'

Human Rights Watch says Ms Miyati was treated in a Riyadh hospital in March 2005 for gangrene, malnourishment and other injuries.

All charges against Ms Miyati's male employer were dropped early in the investigation, Human Rights Watch says.

On Monday a Riyadh judge found the female employer not guilty, despite her earlier admission and "compelling physical evidence", the group says.

A prior Saudi judgement, subsequently overturned, had seen Ms Miyati convicted of falsely accusing her employers and sentenced to 79 lashes.

Human Rights Watch said the latest ruling "sends a dangerous message to Saudi employers that they can beat domestic workers with impunity and that victims have little hope of justice".

Rights organisations say many foreign domestic maids in Saudi Arabia work in harsh circumstances and often suffer abuse by their employers.

The Saudi Labour Ministry has acknowledged some problems, but the government also says foreign workers' rights are protected under Islamic law.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7415290.stm

Published: 2008/05/22 15:47:39 GMT

11 19 10 Body of maid found in dumpster- Saudi Arabia

Body of Indonesian maid found in Abha dumptser

By ALI KOTARUMALOS | AP

Published: Nov 19, 2010 13:59 Updated: Nov 19, 2010 13:59

JAKARTA: Indonesia on Friday asked Saudi authorities to look into reports that one of its domestic workers was allegedly killed by her employer in Abha and thrown into a garbage bin — the second case of maid abuse to emerge this week.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting called to discuss the need to protect hundreds of thousands of migrants who flock to the Middle East in search of work.

Too many, human rights groups say, face slavery-like conditions, torture, sexual abuse and even death.

Indonesian Minister of Labor Muhaimin Iskandar said an embassy team was dispatched to Abha to look into allegations the 36-year-old maid, Kikim Komalasari, had been killed by her bosses.

Her neck was slashed and she had severe cuts to the rest of her body, he said.

“It’s shocking to hear this ... it’s beyond inhumane,” Yudhoyono said, adding, however, he was encouraged so far by the Saudi government’s quick response. “I’m hopeful the perpetrators will be punished according to law.”

The report came as a team of Indonesian officials headed to the Mideast to seek justice and medical help for another maid, Sumiati binti Salan Mustapa, who has been hospitalized in Madinah since Nov. 8.

The 23-year-old’s employers allegedly burned her, broke her middle finger and cut her lips with scissors.

Earlier this week, New York-based group Human Rights Watch urged Mideastern countries to do more to protect domestic workers in their countries, saying a string of allegations point to a “broader pattern of abuse.” They were responding to reports that a Sri Lankan maid working in Jordan had been forced to swallow nails. Another maid employed in Kuwait claimed her employer drove nails into her body.

“The wanton brutality alleged in these cases is shocking,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, which called on authorities to investigate claims promptly and bring those responsible to justice.

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article196004.ece

11 -14 -2010 Forced to swallow six nails

AFP - Sri Lanka is probing allegations that one of its nationals employed in Jordan was forced to swallow nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months, an official said Sunday.

A housemaid identified as D. M. Chandima has told the Sri Lankan diplomatic mission in Amman that her employer forced her to swallow six nails, an official at the Foreign Employment Bureau of Sri Lanka said.

"We are awaiting a full report from doctors," the head of the bureau, Kingsley Ranawaka, said adding that the authorities would decide on the next steps after looking at the medical evidence.

The report came as another Sri Lankan housemaid who had been working in Kuwait accused her employer of driving 14 wire nails into her body as punishment for failing in her work.

The woman, identified only as Lechchami, 38, underwent surgery to have the nails removed after returning home to Sri Lanka, the director of the hospital in the northwestern town of Kurunegala said on Saturday.

The doctor said the woman had told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails into her hands and left leg -- some as long as 3.5 centimetres (1.5 inches) -- when she asked for her salary after working for six months.

Police said the case was under investigation.

In August, another housemaid complained her Saudi employer drove 24 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment. Most of them were removed by surgeons in Sri Lanka.

The Saudi government and private sector officials in Riyadh have questioned the credibility of the woman's allegations.

Some 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 percent are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong, seeking higher salaries than they would get at home.

Non-governmental organisations report frequent cases of employer abuse of maids who work abroad.

http://www.france24.com/en/20101114-sri-lankan-maid-alleges-nail-torture-jordan

11 14 10 -In jordan - Sri Lankan forced to swallow nails ?

A SRI Lankan housemaid said her employer in Jordan forced her to swallow six nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months.

"We are awaiting a full report from doctors," said Kingsley Ranawaka, the head of the Foreign Employment Bureau of Sri Lanka, adding that authorities would decide on the next steps after looking at the medical evidence.

Identified as D.M. Chandima, the maid reported the alleged torture to the Sri Lankan diplomatic mission in Amman, the bureau said.

The report came as another Sri Lankan housemaid who worked in Kuwait accused her employer of driving 14 wire nails into her body as punishment for failing in her work.

The woman, identified only as Lechchami, 38, underwent surgery to have the nails removed after returning home to Sri Lanka, the director of the hospital in the northwestern town of Kurunegala said on Saturday.

The doctor said the woman told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails - some as long as 1.5 inches - into her hands and left leg when she asked for her salary after working for six months.

Police said the case was under investigation.

In August, another maid complained that her Saudi employer drove 24 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment. Most of them were removed by surgeons in Sri Lanka.

The Saudi government and private sector officials in Riyadh questioned the credibility of the woman's allegations.

Some 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 percent are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East, while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong, seeking higher salaries than they would get at home.

Non-governmental organisations report frequent cases of employer abuse of maids who work abroad.

14 nails into her body

The video - English

Nov 14 ,2010 Another Sri Lankan maid alleges nail torture in Kuwait

Nov 14 ,2010 Another Sri Lankan maid alleges nail torture in Kuwait



A Sri Lankan housemaid has accused her Kuwaiti employer of hammering 14 nails into her body, in the second such incident in the past few months, a local doctor said Saturday.

The woman, identified only as Lechchami, 38, underwent surgery to have the nails removed after returning home to Sri Lanka, the director of the hospital in the northwestern town of Kurunegala said.

"We have removed nine out of the 14 wire nails that showed up in X-rays," hospital director Soma Rajamanthri told AFP.

The doctor said the woman had told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails into her hands and left leg - some as long as 3.5 centimetres (1.5 inches) - when she asked for her salary after working for six months.

"We can't verify her story, but she said the husband-and-wife couple who employed her did this to her," Rajamanthri said.

A police spokesman said the case was under investigation.

In August, another housemaid complained her Saudi employer drove 24 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment. Most of them were removed by surgeons at Sri Lanka's Kamburupitiya hospital.

The Saudi government and private sector officials in Riyadh have questioned the credibility of the woman's allegations.

Some 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 percent are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong, seeking higher salaries than they would get at home.

Non-governmental organisations report frequent cases of employer abuse of maids who work abroad.

24 nails in the body - video

Click here to watch video - english.

Video - Maid Surgery.

Video

Sep, 2, 2010 - maid’s torture charges baseless , Saudi officials claim

09 02 10 Lankan maid’s torture charges baseless - Saudi officials

Saudi officials have refuted claims that a sponsor in Riyadh hammered nails into the body of his Sri Lankan housemaid as punishment, saying the allegations are baseless.

RIYADH: Saudi officials have refuted claims that a sponsor in Riyadh hammered nails into the body of his Sri Lankan housemaid as punishment.

“These allegations against the Saudi employer are baseless and the whole episode looks like one big drama,” said Saad Al-Baddah, chairman of the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee (SANARCOM), which is responsible for the recruitment and management of foreign workers in the Kingdom.

He told Arab News on Wednesday that 49-year-old L.T. Ariyawathi has signed a letter acknowledging her last salary and said that she did not experience any problems with her sponsor before she left Saudi Arabia. Al-Baddah described the torture allegations as a figment of the maid’s imagination, adding that Saudi authorities are wondering how the nails and needles were embedded into her body.

The maid did not go to the doctors straight from the airport, only after a few days, Al Baddah said. He added that the Saudi sponsor, who is over 60, suffers from heart conditions. “The sponsor’s doctors have advised him to do only 25 percent of his normal work because of his weak heart,” he said. “How can a person in such poor health be able to do a strenuous activity like hammer nails into a woman’s body?” He added that a woman with so many nails inside her could not survive for weeks.

Al-Baddah met chairman of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLFBE) Kingsley Ranawake at his office on Tuesday and pledged all cooperation in any investigation into the maid’s case.

The Saudi Embassy in Colombo also issued a statement Wednesday casting doubt on Ariyawathi’s claims. “The important factor is that this housemaid cannot pass security checks and sophisticated machines at Riyadh and Colombo International Airports with these metal things inside her body,” an embassy spokesman said.

He added that the Saudi ambassador was giving his personal attention to the matter and constantly being updated by officials from Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry.

Meanwhile, Arab News has learned that the Sri Lankan Ambassador Ahmed A. Jawad has submitted an official memo on Wednesday to a senior Saudi Foreign Ministry official attached to the consular division. Sources say that the letter was handed over to the ministry on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

The Sri Lankan Embassy received the medical report of the housemaid on Saturday from SLBFE and it is waiting for approval from its government before presenting the document to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.

Ranawake, who is currently in Riyadh on a goodwill mission, was unavailable for comment.

Source : Arab News

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article122855.ece

A pizza delivery uncovered a kidnapping and rape in progress

Original post here

http://www.urbanswirl.com/news/opinion/1648-pizza-delivery-man-saved-rape-victim.html

A pizza delivery uncovered a kidnapping and rape in progress.

GATLINBURG, Tenn. – Chris Turner normally wouldn't drive into the remote Tennessee mountains just to deliver a pizza. The one time he did, he came upon a scene that drained the color from his face and made him "numb from head to toe" — a woman with her hands tied, silently begging him to call 911.

It was no joke, and Turner, 32, rushed to a nearby house and made the call. Police say the woman was jogging in her Atlanta neighborhood when she was whisked away by a man who frequented her business. Authorities say he drove her off, raped her and held her captive inside a cabin. The 24-year-old woman was rescued by Sevier County deputies on Tuesday evening because of Turner's quick thinking.

Turner told The Associated Press on Friday that he noticed the woman pop up from a couch while the suspect signed the credit card slip.

"While I was standing in the door all you could see was the back of the couch," Turner said. "And then she popped over the back of the couch and showed me that her hands were bound. And she was just mouthing, 'Please call 911.'"

Turner at first thought it was a joke.

"When I realized what was going on, I went numb from head to toe and turned pale white," he said.

Turner tried to look calm. "Have a nice day. Enjoy your food," he told the suspect, who tipped him $5 on a $37.69 bill. Then he rushed back to his van, where his wife, Nease, was waiting behind the wheel.

"Go, go, go!" he told her.

The cabin location was out of cell phone range. So they drove to a nearby house and called police. They waited to make sure the suspect didn't flee. Then Turner stayed to see the man arrested and the victim taken away in an ambulance. "I wanted to make sure she was OK," he said.

The woman told authorities she was jogging near her home about 11:50 a.m. Tuesday when a frequent customer at a restaurant and bar owned by the woman and her husband asked her to see his new car. She got into the vehicle, which turned out to be a rental, and was immediately tied up.

She told police the suspect drove her more than 200 miles to the cabin in Tennessee and raped her. The Associated Press does not identify alleged sexual assault victims.

Police arrested David J. Jansen, 46, of Snellville, Ga., without a struggle on charges of aggravated kidnapping and rape, Sheriff Ron Seals said in a statement. He was released on $800,000 bond late Thursday. His attorney, Donald Bosch of Knoxville, had no comment Friday. Link

Chris Turner is a Hero!
A poker face and quick thinking saved this woman's life and possibly his own and his wife, Nease.
He deserves a medal!

Sept 01, 2010 -Saudi oficial denies Sri Lankan Maid alegations

A Saudi official has denied a Sri Lankan maid’s allegations that the couple she worked for in the kingdom hammered nails and needles into her body.

Doctors in Sri Lanka have said they removed 13 nails and five needles from LG Ariyawathi after she returned from Saudi Arabia last month.

The items had been driven into Ariyawathi’s legs and forehead, they said.

But Saad Al Badah, the head of a Saudi government department responsible for foreign workers, told state television on Tuesday night that Ariyawathi’s allegations were baseless and amounted to blackmail.

“The whole story is baseless,” said Al Badah.

“It is nothing but blackmail by Sri Lankan labour firms,” he said.


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Al Jazeera :

September 02 , 2010

Riyadh questions maid torture claim

Saudi government officials have questioned the account of a Sri Lankan maid who said her Saudi employers planted 24 nails and needles into her body.

Saad al-Badah, the chairman of the National Recruitment Committee, told Saudi state television on Tuesday that the account of LT Ariyawathi seemed "80 per cent fabricated" and suggested the motive could be extortion.

He questioned how the woman, who worked for a Saudi family in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for five months until August, could have continued to be healthy and without infection with nails in her body.

He also said that it was hard to believe she could have passed through several airport metal detectors on her return from Riyadh with so many pieces of metal in her body.

"Even someone with just one coin in his pocket has to remove it when passing through the detector," Badah said.

Abdel-Hadi Abaeri, the head of the security department at the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, said no reports of such abuse have been received at the kingdom's airports.

Ariyawathi, 49, returned to Sri Lanka two weeks ago, complaining that she had been beaten and tortured by her employers, who she said had hammered the nails and pins into various parts of her body.

Surgeons at Sri Lanka's southern Kamburupitiya hospital last week removed 19 of the five centimetres-long nails and a needle in a three-hour operation.

Kingdom's reputation

Ariyawathi told the hospital that her Saudi employer inflicted the injuries on her as a punishment for her inability to communicate with those in the household.

Ariyawathi accused her employers of severe abuse for complaining about being overworked [Al Jazeera]

"She said her employer heated the nails and then hammered them into her body," Prabath Gajadeera, the hospital director, told the AFP news agency.

"The nails were in her arms, legs and forehead."

Gajadeera said the woman could not have driven the nails herself.

"It is clear someone else had to drive in the nails... We will in any case refer her to a psychiatrist for analysis before discharging her from hospital."

Nimal Ranawaka, the labour attache at the Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh, said he was aware of the Saudi doubts but that the case remained under investigation.

Saudi Arabia's English-language newspaper Arab News called for the probe to be completed as quickly as possible to avoid further damage to the kingdom's reputation.

"Clearly the story has to be thoroughly investigated. If her employers did this then they must be punished rigorously, and be seen to be punished," the paper said in an editorial on Wednesday.

"But equally, if the woman did this to herself, hoping to benefit financially from it, she must be punished."

Around 500,000 Sri Lankans work in Saudi Arabia, part of a massive foreign workforce that constitutes around 30 per cent of the total Saudi population of 27 million.

Aug 27, 2010 - Nails Hammered in Maid Worker in Saudi Arabia

Heated nails hammered into Sri Lankan maid

A Sri Lankan maid returned from her job in Saudi Arabia with 24 nails inside her body – the result of torture by the family who employed her, a doctor and government official said Wednesday.

L.G. Ariyawathi's body is riddled with needles and nails, which are scheduled to be removed Friday, a doctor confirmed Wednesday.

Ariyawathi, 49, returned to Sri Lanka on Saturday from Saudi Arabia and was hospitalized the next day with severe pain at a facility about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away from capital, Colombo, according to media reports.

She told a local newspaper that her employers tortured her with the nails as punishment.

"They (employer and his family) did not allow me even to rest. The woman at the house had heated the nails and then the man inserted them into my body," Ariyawathi was quoted as saying in the Lakbima, a newspaper published in local Sinhalese language.

She told the paper that she went to Saudi Arabia in March and was paid only two months' salary, with her employer withholding three months' salary to buy an air ticket to send her home.

Dr. H.K.K. Satharasinghe of Kamburupitiya hospital said X-rays show Ariyawathi has 24 nails and needles in her body. The nails range from 1-2 inches.

Her initial puncture wounds have healed over, the doctor told The Associated Press by telephone. However, she finds difficult to walk because she has two nails in her knee and two in her ankles.

Another needle is in her forehead, and the rest are in hands, he said.

"Her condition is stable, but we are giving antibiotics and painkillers," Satharasinghe said, adding that doctors will begin removing the nails on Friday.

The 24 nails are "inside the body due to torture meted out by her Saudi employer," Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, deputy minister of economic development, said in a statement on a government website.

Abeywardena said the government would "report about this matter to the Saudi Government and provide her adequate compensation."

Kalyana Priya Ramanayake, a spokesman for Sri Lanka's Foreign Employment Bureau, said that Ariyawathi had been too afraid to complain about the abuse to Saudi authorities, fearing that her employers might not let her return home. She also did not report the abuse to Sri Lankan officials, until she was hospitalized.

The bureau is a government agency that oversees the welfare of expatriate workers.

Working as maids or drivers, Sri Lankan workers can earn higher salaries overseas. About 1.5 million Sri Lankans work abroad, nearly 400,000 of them in Saudi Arabia alone.

Jan 11 ,2010 - Saudi Throws Kenyan Maid Out of Top Floor Window

Nairobi — A Kenyan woman is accusing her Saudi employer of throwing her out of a third floor window, breaking her legs and hands. Another maid, just rescued by relatives, said she had to live on dog food because her employers neither fed her nor allowed her out of the house.

Ms Fatma Athman, of Kisauni, Mombasa, returned to the country last week with broken limbs and stories of near-slavery in Saudi Arabia where she was employed as a maid last May. She was lucky, she said, she landed in a swimming pool and not on the pavement. Now she is dependent on others to help her even with the simplest of chores.

"I and one of my friends were asked by Saudis who visited Kenya eight months ago to go with them. We organised everything through the Kenyan embassy -- our agent -- and we got documents to travel to the Middle East on May 2 last year," she said. On arrival, she said, she was discriminated against and required to work 22 hours a day.

She also says she would be subjected to a torrent of abuse for the slightest mistake. "I used to sleep for only two hours and I ate left-overs. That was really slavery," she said in tears. Susan Wanjiku, 29, has a story of similar mistreatment. The mother of two was promised a salary of Sh16,000 to work as a maid in Jeddah. "I thought I would make money and come back home when I had enough to sustain me and my children," she said during an interview at Nation Centre at the weekend.

On arrival in Jeddah, she was taken to her new place of work and instructed to immediately start work. "I was shown 16 rooms to clean," she said. Known as Shakala (a house help in Arabic), her work started at 3am and ended at 11pm. This was her daily routine for the three months she was in Jeddah.

"I was to be joined by my husband who had been promised a driver's job, but I kept praying that he changes his mind," she said. "Luckily he did. He did not have money and this helped... We could have both suffered." Ms Alice Wakio, a school dropout from Gatanga in Kenya's Central Province, said that she lived on dog food because her employer neither fed her nor let her out of the house.

"There is no food there. They tell us to wait for them to eat first then they give us the leftovers," said Alice. On days when there were no leftovers, she would turn to dog food. "Their children insult us. We were never let out of the house and for the three months I was there (in Jeddah), I did not see the sun. I only saw it when I landed in Nairobi. I fainted on alighting," she said.

Both Susan and Alice were recruited by an agent they identified as Margaret, whom they said is based at the Saudi embassy in Nairobi. They were charged Sh15,000 placement fees. When the Nation called the agent, she said she had a few vacancies. "You can come now with the money," she said. "We have few vacancies left."

She hang up

She hang up when we asked whether she was aware that some of the maids she got jobs were stranded in Saudi Arabia. The maids said there are as many as 100 young Kenyan women living in the streets of Jeddah after being thrown out.

On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that "a number of Kenyans" were stranded in Saudi Arabia. Susan and Alice said they were rescued by relatives back home who raised their air fare. Their dreams of a well-paying job, they said, was just a mirage. "It's bad there. Don't be cheated," they said of the extravagant promises of good jobs in Middle East.

Fatma claimed the children of her employer also sexually exploited her. She said she worked for five months, but was paid for only one. She was given no explanation. On the day her employer pushed her out the window, she said she was hanging clothes on the line. "I heard my employer saying 'you are better off dead, you are better dead'".

She plunged into the pool three floors down and was rescued by the police. After a week in hospital, she was deported. "I left Saudi Arabia without luggage, not even my clothes. What I took is the few drugs I was given at the hospital."

Her father, Mr Athman Ali, is demanding that the Foreign Affairs ministry and the Kenyan Embassy in Saudi Arabia seek justice for his daughter. The stories of mistreatment come just days after two families revealed that their daughters were being held in Saudi deportation centres after they differed with their employers. The two, Ms Esha Noor and Fatuma Shabira, have been at the centre for seven weeks after the Kenyan embassy failed to process their documents to travel back home.

Ministry officials said about 3,000 women from Kenya are currently in Saudi Arabia. They said both the embassy in Saudi Arabia and the ministry had received complaints from Kenyan maids. "I can confirm to you that we have received such claims. We are receiving claims of unpaid wages, mistreatment and so far we have helped bring back a few," said an officers by telephone.

The ministry's Middle East director Ken Vikisia said the ministry was working to repatriate those being mistreated. "We have received the complaints from the two families, and we have ordered our diplomats to work on the issue," he said. He said several people have been lured to Saudi Arabia "only to be turned into slaves when they get there."