Aanya Wipulasena in Ceylon Today, August 2025
The decision to work overseas wasn’t easy. Burdened by debt, 25-year-old Nelum Niroshani, a mother of one from Anuradhapura, felt she had no choice. Her plan was simple: Take a job as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia, earn enough to support her family, repay her loans and then return home to her seven-year-old child. But her time in the Middle East quickly turned into a nightmare.
An agency located in Kurunegala assured her that the workplace environment was safe and that her responsibilities would be limited to housekeeping duties. But when she arrived in the house in August 2023, she found that she was expected to do more.
“Baba (her employer) started to touch me inappropriately while I worked around the house. He would pinch my back and breasts. He even asked me to massage him. He wouldn’t stop when I asked him to, and when I informed the agency, they asked me to send video proof to take action. I then told Baba’s wife,” Niroshani told Ceylon Today.
She later joined a second home where she endured more abuse. Nelum remembers the day vividly. “The lady told me to pack my bags. I didn’t know where we were going. We arrived at another house, and she left me there.”
“I was told by the lady in that house that they bought me for 12,000 Saudi Riyal (nearly Rs 1 million) and I had to now work for them,” she said.
With only a few hours of sleep and more work than she signed up for, she finally ran away to the Police.
“The children cut my hand. They broke my fingers,” she said. When she reported it to the agency, they dismissed her. “They told me they couldn’t help because I was in a house they hadn’t sent me to.” So, one day, when no one was watching, she ran to the Police and begged to be sent home.
The plight of Sri Lankan women working overseas is often overlooked, despite mounting evidence of abuse and brushed under the carpet by recruitment agencies.
According to statistics from the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), the number of Sri Lankans migrating overseas for domestic work in 2022 to 2024 was consistently three times higher than in 2021, coinciding with the country’s economic crisis. This year, the numbers show a similar trend, with over 40,000 Sri Lankans leaving for domestic work overseas as of 11 July.
The total number of migrations for domestic work since 2021 till 11 July this year, is 366,918. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia remained the top destinations, recruiting most Sri Lankan domestic workers.
Ashila Dandeniya, the founder of Standup Movement Lanka, which advocates for migrant workers, stated that consecutive governments have not responded favourably to their issues.
A returnee migrant worker herself, Dandeniya said their two key demands are to grant voting rights to migrant women and to include migrant worker representation on the Government’s decision-making body – the National Advisory Committee on Labour Migration. She noted that this body currently consists only of Government officials and recruitment agency members.
“We need more migrant domestic worker representatives in this body,” she said, emphasising that migrant workers need rights more than benefits. She added, “There is no safety for migrant workers. We hear of so many issues, but there is no systemic answer to tackle them.”
SLBFE statistics also show that 365 domestic workers have died while working overseas since 2022 till 11 July this year. While many of them are reported as natural causes, 23 died by suicide.
Seelawathi Nona, 44-years-old and a mother of two from Hokandara, says that she threatened to jump off the roof top of the house she was working at in Saudi Arabia if she was not allowed to return home.
Nona was recruited through an agency based in Battaramulla. She was promised a monthly salary of Rs. 120,000, a separate room and assured that her only responsibility would be cleaning.
An officer attached to the agency provided her with the flight ticket and agreement at the airport. She was not asked to sign any documents. This is an apparent tactic adopted by recruitment agencies to deceive workers.
When she arrived in Saudi Arabia in February this year, her phone and passport were taken by the house owner. She was asked to clean 12 rooms and five bathrooms daily, she had to also help around the kitchen, do the laundry, and sweep outside the house and water plants in the scorching sun whilst after dinner she had to do the dishes. Her work usually went on till 3.00a.m. She was asked to sleep on the living room floor.
“Breakfast was just a flat bread and tea. I worked through Ramadan, but since the family was fasting, I wasn’t given lunch. It was torture,” Nona recalled.
However, what Nona couldn’t bare was not having the opportunity to call home. “I just wanted to hear my children’s voices. I begged them to let me call home, but they refused. I cried every day. They finally gave me a small phone (not a smart phone) to call home and asked me to tell my husband that I was happy. I was not.
“Then one day when I couldn’t bare it any more, I climbed onto the rooftop, and threatened to jump,” she said quietly. She says she was ready to die that day.
Soon she was moved to a government-run shelter in Saudi Arabia, a place meant for migrant workers in distress. But when she reached out to the recruitment agency, she was met with verbal abuse. One official even threatened to drive her into the desert and leave her there—without food, without water.
The agency demanded Rs 800,000 and a separate sum to purchase a ticket to send her home—far more than she could afford. She spent 27 days at the centre, watching in horror as officials punched and kicked other migrant workers.
Mayuri Majendra, a 25-year-old and mother of one from Batticaloa, was also at the centre Nona was at. She said she was made to clean eight rooms, wash 10 bathrooms and not given proper meals at the house she worked. Nor was she paid for the work she did. Desperate she sought refuge at the centre.
One day an official at the centre punched her till she fell to the ground and proceeded to kick her. Nona and a few others intervened to help Mayuri. “I couldn’t swallow food for three days straight,” Mayuri said. Now finally back in Batticaloa she says she was not paid for two months of work.
Nona is also back in Sri Lanka. She managed to pay for the flight ticket home by herself. The SLBFE has said that they could reimburse the cost of the ticket. However, she has not heard back from the bureau for over three months.
Since 2021 till 11 July this year the SLBFE has received over 11,000 requests for repatriation, with over 4,000 from Saudi Arabia and over 4,500 from Kuwait, while 1,052 domestic workers were repatriated from Saudi Arabia and 1,002 from Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka shows that total workers’ remittances for January-July 2025 amounted to USD 4.43 billion. The highest number of remittances in the first quarter of 2025 was received from Kuwait followed by United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Activists say that despite their direct contribution to the country’s economy their rights and safety remain overlooked. “I didn’t even bring my clothes back—I gave them to the women at the centre,” Nona said. “I couldn’t bring sweets or gifts for my children. I was not even given my smart phone back.” What hurt her most, she said, was the way local recruitment agencies treated women like her. “We are not paid what the agencies promise, they make us work more than we agreed to and when we ask for help from the agencies, they shout at us and curse us in filth.”
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THUPPAHI EDITORIAL COMMENT, 25 August 2025
THIS is a mind-blowing account — one which is a devastating comment on Sri Lankan political and administrative officialdom over many many years. Male chauvinism also enters the picture …. especiallywithin the Middle eastern states that benefit from Sri Lankan labour migrants….
