A Sri Lankan tsunami victim who came to Israel to work as a caregiver last year recently complained she suffered abuse at the hand of her wheelchair-bound employer.
The home that Rasika Galagedarage shared with her husband and daughter in Sri Lanka was destroyed in the tsunami that struck Asia in 2004. Last year they decided that if they were ever to be able to build another home, Galagedarage would have to find work abroad.
A Sri Lankan employment agent promised Galagedarage a job in Israel for $200 a month (less than a quarter of the minimum wage), but she would have to pay him $5,500 to get her the job.
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Galagedarage arrived in Israel in June 2006. She began working for Susan Amoyal of Rishon Letzion, who is confined to a wheelchair and has a permit to employ a foreign caregiver.
According to the declaration submitted to the court by Galagedarage, she was required to get up every day at 5:30 or 6 A.M., clean the house where she lived with Amoyal and her parents, sister and little girl, and at 9 A.M. go to clean the neighbors' homes.
"Five days, five houses. She was always yelling at me to go clean," Galagedarage said Tuesday. Galagedarage said her work days would end at 10 P.M, and Amoyal took the money she earned at the other houses.
"I was hungry all the time." Galagedarage says, adding that she slept on the floor without a mattress.
Galagedarage's complaints are not unique. In recent years, organizations representing people with disabilities have said that some of their members are taking advantage of their caregivers for financial gain.
Amoyal denies abusing Galagedarage and admitted to the Immigration Police that her caregiver slept on the floor.
One of the times Galagedarage returned from her weekly day off, Amoyal refused to let her in the house and she slept outside. After she was let in the next day, Amoyal locked her in, Galagedarage says.
When Amoyal took her caregiver to the Sri Lankan embassy, threatening to have her sent home Galagedarage was able to flee. Friends helped her contact Kav La'Oved, the workers' rights hotline, and the immigration police, who investigated and charged Amoyal with abuse, false imprisonment and illegal employment.
Following the intervention by Kav La'Oved legal adviser Yuval Livnat, Amoyal paid Galagedarage $300 for three weeks' work. Following the police investigation, the Industry Trade and Employment Ministry revoked for a year Amoyal's license to employ a caregiver.
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