RIYADH, 1 October 2007 — A Sri Lankan woman who was rescued from a Saudi household in Riyadh will receive a SR20,000 payout and a ticket home after going public with allegations of ill-treatment, a Sri Lankan Embassy official said yesterday.
W.S.M.S. Wijesundera, charge d’affaires at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh, said the 47-year-old housemaid, Anista Marie, was “very happy” her seven-year ordeal had ended.
He said she would receive SR20,000 ($5,360) and be allowed to return home to her four children after a decade in Saudi Arabia.
Marie was rescued from her female employer by Riyadh police and embassy officials in early September, three weeks after she called Arab News saying she had been imprisoned at the home of her sponsor, abused, and not paid for at least seven years.
Wijesundera said the written settlement was reached at a police station in the Saudi capital in the presence of an embassy official after the maid’s “sponsor” disputed her claim on the length of time she had not received her monthly salary of SR500 ($134).
The settlement will be paid in installments, starting with SR5,000 ($1,340) in a week’s time.
Marie has said she would like to get home to her family as soon as possible and indicated that the desire to leave was stronger than her will to stay in the Kingdom to follow through on pressing criminal charges against her employer. However, she had given the embassy power of attorney to press charges against her sponsor, a Saudi woman whose name has not been provided.
The maid has also received donations from the Sri Lankan community totaling more than $2,870 following an appeal by the embassy, he said.
Half a million Sri Lankans live and work in Saudi Arabia, many of them as domestic helpers or drivers, providing a key source of foreign currency for Sri Lanka.
