RIYADH, 10 November 2007 — A Sri Lankan maid who was helped by Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman to return home after she claimed that she did not receive her salary for 13 years arrived in her village to be met by shocked relatives who presumed that she had died more than 11 years ago.
When Girlie Malika Fernando, 53, reached home in Weragama Watte near Wadduwa, 40 kilometers from Colombo, her family could not believe she was alive. They had presumed she had died two years after arriving in the Kingdom to work as a housemaid.
Anton Nishantha Mendis, Fernando’s eldest son, who was only 11 years old when his mother left for work in the Kingdom, said that his family would even conduct religious rituals in memory of his mother.
“It’s a pleasant surprise to everyone of us and we can’t still believe our mother is with us with so much money donated by a kind-hearted Saudi prince,” Mendis said.
After her employer died, Fernando ran away from his home in Arar in July last year and sought shelter at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh.
She told authorities that she had not been paid for 13 years. Subsequently, she was transferred to the government-run Welfare Center for Stranded Housemaids to be repatriated home.
In a gesture of goodwill, Prince Salman gave Fernando SR58,000 toward her salary dues since the maid was unable to claim the money from her deceased employer’s family.
Fernando said she was 37 when she left the country to work as a housemaid in Saudi Arabia.
“Now I am 51 years old. I had to undergo many difficulties and could not correspond with my family as all my documents, including my passport, were destroyed by one of my sponsor’s children,” she said.
“I was virtually on house arrest. I escaped from that house having worked there for several years without payment and complained to the embassy,” she added.
She thanked Prince Salman for his magnanimity in paying her salary dues. She also expressed gratitude to diplomats and officials at the Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh for facilitating her return home.
Fernando hopes to invest her money to help her family, comprising a son and two daughters.
