Riyadh: Thirty-two Indian women, stranded for months at a shelter home after being conned by India-based recruitment agencies promising decent jobs, are desperately seeking repatriation, Saudi media reported on Wednesday.
The women, who speak fluent English and are mostly from southern India, were conned into believing they were being hired for jobs other than domestic servants in Saudi Arabia.
Many of these women have escaped their employers after being overworked, mistreated or made to live in substandard conditions with poor and delayed pay.
They are now lodged at a shelter home operated by Interior Ministry in Riyadh.
Some of these women are falling ill, while the condition of Satyavati, another maid at the shelter, is deteriorating, Arab News reported.
Officials have been unable to track the recruitment agencies that sent them to the Kingdom.
"I was promised a job as a domestic servant with a decent family in Madinah, so I accepted the offer," said one woman requesting anonymity.
"I was desperate to earn SR3,661 for my daughter's operation, which is why I came to the Kingdom. I haven't received a single riyal. How, then, should I be liable to pay the entire cost of the recruitment process."
Another inmate said: "I was compelled to run away because I have not been paid in five months."
Their sponsors demand compensation for the expenses they incurred getting them hired. Expenses range anywhere between SR16,000 (about USD 4200) to SR40,000.
The women are losing hope of ever returning home since their sponsors demand huge sums of amount they claim they had spent on bringing these women to the Kingdom.
A consular team from the Indian Embassy have visited them occasionally, but have been unable to obtain immigration clearance from the Saudi passports office since employers refuse to allow them out of the country.
According to a report issued by the Saudi Labour Ministry, 65,000 domestic servants absconded from their employers last year, almost half of whom are women working as housemaids.
Housemaids from Indonesia account for more than half of all domestic servants in the Kingdom, followed by the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.
The number of Indian housemaids, however, are expected to rise in the Kingdom following recent agreements.
