tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043699434821911553.post7908422032547429919..comments2024-03-24T00:17:33.455-07:00Comments on Dream into Reality: The Celebration of Independence – What does it truly mean? Who are the real heroes?Rajarataralahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12458863668453807819noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043699434821911553.post-76762379556294414652009-02-05T03:08:00.000-08:002009-02-05T03:08:00.000-08:00thanks George, I was moved by what you wrote. I ju...thanks George, I was moved by what you wrote. I just hope we raise the level of awareness sufficiently to address this, as it is still common to sweep under the carpet things we don't like to deal with.Rajarataralahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12458863668453807819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043699434821911553.post-91209812534337721602009-02-05T01:41:00.000-08:002009-02-05T01:41:00.000-08:00Ranjit,Thanks for this posting. In the early 1980s...Ranjit,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for this posting. <BR/><BR/>In the early 1980s, I taught English in the Sultanate Of Oman, a comparatively liberal Middle Eastern country. These were the early years of Sri Lankan housemaid servitude in that region. By the time I left in 1984, they were being traded at the airport itself. (That is, the local sponsor of the maid would sell her off to the highest bidder, more for sexual slavery than for household work. The better looking the woman, the higher the price.) The treatment of housemaids in countries like Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and other Emirates countries was far worse. The situation hasn't changed at all and has probably become worse. To cite one incident, I read in the "Lankadeepa" newspaper about a Sri Lankan woman being told in Saudi Arabia that she had been brought to service the three grown sons of the household. She witnessed the death and clandestine burial of an Indonesian maid who had been brought to the same house previously. (These horror stories don't appear in English language newspapers.) Because Sri Lankan maids also work in Hong Kong and many of them had worked in the Middle East earlier, I continue to hear these horror stories. The Al Jazeera program "Witness" carried a documentary on the plight of Sri Lankan maids in Lebanon. It was so shocking that I no longer feel sorry for the Lebanese when they are bombed or attacked.<BR/><BR/>A doctor who works in the Seeduwa area, and who sees the plight of returning maids, once told me that we should take the lion out of the flag and replace it with a sketch of a housemaid, because, as you noted, they supply the foreign exchange that keeps Sri Lanka going.<BR/><BR/>Those luxury cars that the politicians and their kith and kin ride in, their foreign junkets, are financed through the tears of shattered lives, both of the housemaids and their families in Sri Lanka. As a nation, we should be ashamed of the way we export our women to the Middle East for physical and mental torture. I thought the trafficking would stop under a woman President, but ...<BR/><BR/>Enough said.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1043699434821911553.post-21022991702388077592009-02-04T13:39:00.000-08:002009-02-04T13:39:00.000-08:00It is heart wrenching to learn that a maid makes o...It is heart wrenching to learn that a maid makes only a $2000 a year. It hurts even more to learn how rich earn subsidized travel and goods on these peoples back. Then I realize that majority Sri Lankans makes less than $2000 a year. Now I understand your accounting you posted while ago. (I thought you were missing a zero).<BR/>You are a very courageous person! May you continue to be independent.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com