By GEOFFREY BEW

TWO manpower agencies will be reported to the Labour Ministry for allegedly abusing housemaids, it emerged yesterday. It follows two cases in which one maid was allegedly made to strip naked and then beaten all over her body and face with a slipper, while another was allegedly threatened with rape.

The Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) says these are the latest in a string of abuse cases from runaways

who end up at its shelter.

Action committee head Marietta Dias said something must be done to stop the alleged abuse and threatening behaviour of some agency staff.

“We have girls who have run away and come to us and when we try to hand them back to the manpower agencies, they refuse because they have been badly treated,” she told the GDN.

“We cannot take them to the agencies against their will.

“We had one woman who threatened to commit suicide because she did not want to return to the agency, saying she would rather die.

“Most of the time it is Sri Lankan women working in the agencies who are carrying out the abuse and tell us they only wanted to ‘teach them a lesson’.”

Ms Dias said she regularly informed Sri Lankan officials about such cases, but they rarely take them up and appealed for more help from the community.

“Our policy is to take anybody into our shelter, but once we do, we have a terrible time,” she said.

“We try to send people home within a few weeks or a month.

“But we had one girl recently for nearly three months.

“I know the government has closed down so many agencies, but this ill-treatment is rampant and is still continuing.”

Ms Dias said within the last month the organisation had dealt with at least eight cases involving maids who were alleged physically and mentally abused by manpower agencies.

They include Sri Lankan Ismail Nisvika, who has been staying at the MWPS shelter since May.

The 26-year-old, from Kekirawa, in the Anuradhapura district, was sent back to the agency only a week after being posted to a Bahraini family because they her did not like her work.

Ms Nisvika said staff were angry with her and threatened they would allow men to sexually abuse her if she was sent back to the agency again.

However, she was returned a few weeks later by another Bahraini family because, as a Muslim, she refused to bathe on an uncovered terrace roof.

Ms Nisvika claimed she was then verbally abused and beaten by a Sri Lankan agency worker, who slapped her in the face several times.

She was later sent to a Saudi family, but ran away after a week stating she could not work for her sponsor.

MWPS officials picked her up after she was found wondering the streets and dropped off at the Japanese Embassy.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Chitra Kodikara, 35, said she worked for a Bahraini family for nearly three months until she accidentally hurt one of their children’s feet when she was opening a house door.

She told the GDN after she was returned to the agency she was made to strip naked and was beaten all over her body and face with a slipper.

Ms Kodikara, from the Homagama district in Colombo, claimed the Sri Lankan woman who attacked her also stole BD55.

She said the agency owner later put his hand on her throat and threatened to kill her for running away.

However, Ms Kodikara managed to escape and ended up in the care of the MWPS.