Hyderabad: Thirty-three-year-old Anjum Fatima from Chanchalguda was promised a job in Medina with a salary of around Rs 30,000 before she boarded the flight to Saudi. She was told the job would be a comfortable one in the home of an Arab.
After she landed at Riyadh Airport, she had to wait for three days at the airport till someone came to pick her up and take her to her workplace. Instead of taking her to Medina, she was taken to Al Kasim, a remote area 450 km from Riyadh
“It was a farmhouse and the employer informed her that her salary would be less than Rs 15,000. The job was really tough. She could not get time to sleep. When she told her employer she wanted to go back, he started torturing her. She was beaten repeatedly and was not fed for a long time,” said her husband Khuddus Zaiqa.
Fathima recorded a video explaining her ordeal and sent it to her family in Hyderabad. After the news broke, the police and embassy got involved. The police picked up the agents and pressurised them to release her from the custody of her employer.
“Even after the embassy got involved, her employer handed her over to a Pakistani bus driver and asked him to drop her at a deserted place and destroy her passport. Coming to know this, she shouted for help in the bus and reached the airport with the help of other passengers in the bus,” said her husband. Fathima returned to Hyderabad on October 13.
There are many Hyderabadi women like Fathima who are tricked by agents and have to put up with horrible working conditions in Saudi.
Some face sexual harassment, violence and confinement. Most of those who have managed to return say that the employer takes away their mobile phone first and does not allow them to contact their families back home in India.
