Ariyawathi, 49, said her employer in Saudi Arabia inflicted the injuries on her as a punishment. She flew back to Sri Lanka last week and was admitted to Kamburupitiya hospital in the island’s south, hospital director Prabath Gajadeera said on Thursday.
“She was brought in complaining that her Saudi employer drove nails into her body, and X-rays showed that there were 24 nails and a needle,” Gajadeera said. “There is one nail on the forehead, just under the skin.”
The nails were up to two inches (five centimeters) long and were mostly beneath the skin of Ariyawathi’s hands, feet and legs.
Ariyawathi, a mother of three, traveled to Saudi Arabia in March to become a housemaid.
She told doctors she had undergone abuse for more than a month.
Doctors said Ariyawathi was deeply traumatized and unable to give full details of her experience. “She still can’t properly sit down and walk,” Dr. Kamal Weerathunga said.
But she is not in a serious condition and surgeons are expected to try to remove the metal objects from her body on Friday.
Sri Lankan authorities have told journalists in Colombo that an investigation has been launched.
“This is a serious case of ill-treatment which is against all norms of law,” said R.K. Ruhunuge, additional general manager of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment told Arab News from Colombo.
No information was available regarding the identity of the sponsor or whether the sponsor was being investigated or facing any criminal charges.
An official from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh said that it was trying to get in touch with the sponsor through the local recruiting agent, but that the Ramadan schedule has made getting in contact difficult.
Around 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.
— With input from agencies
