Middle East Focus: Tortured Maid of Ceylon: the Other Side of the Story, no TV…….

Arabia Deserta

Tortured Maid of Ceylon: the Other Side of the Story, no TV…….

“Doctors in Sri Lanka have said they removed 13 nails and five needles from L.G. 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 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 labor firms," he said. Al-Badah said the companies have rejected new labor regulations and salary ceiling imposed by the Saudi government.Al-Badah said authorities have received no complaints from neighbors of the Saudi couple to substantiate the allegations…….”

This is confusing: either side can be telling the truth or lying, although we know that someone inserted nails in the maid’s body. There is a case that both sides are lying, to some extent. If they were in the USA instead of Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, we would know the truth, at least two versions of it, pretty quickly. Families, from both sides, would call press conferences and all cable news networks would cover it, gavel to gavel. Neighbors, the neighbors of neighbors, as well as distant in-laws once-removed on both sides would do the same. They would make the rounds of rival morning news shows, and perhaps go on Oprah, Dr. Phil, Montel Williams, Larry King, and maybe even visit Animal Planet. We would get the truth, at least as far as the TV-soaked bored audiences are concerned.
It is also known that local labor firms, in the exporting countries, are responsible at least to some extent for the plight of the abused expatriate housemaids.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com