Dharmapuri: When 37-year-old K. Meenakshi left the parched Pennagaram in Dharmapuri district to work as a housemaid in Saudi Arabia this March, she was sure her days of poverty had ended. But not quite so.
Now it’s more misery for Meenakshi as she has fallen sick and unable to fly back to Pennagaram for medical treatment. Her employers are not giving her any medical help. And they are not letting her come back to Pennagaram till the three year contract ends, said her elder sister, M. Vasanthi of Chekkumedu in
Pennagaram.
Vasanthi told DC that her sister Meenakshi suffered from severe abdominal pain because of kidney stone. The stone was diagnosed when she underwent a medical check-up conducted a few days before she left India.
Despite the medical issues, Vasanthi went to Saudi Arabia as the job agent based in Tiruvannamalai promised to provide medical help after reached Saudi Arabia.
A mother of two children, Meenakshi was forced to seek a job in the Gulf countries as her husband, a chronic alcoholic, jumped before a running train in Tirupur because she refused to give money for buying liquor.
Later, Meenakshi returned to Chekkumedu with her son Satish and daughter Divya. Poverty forced her to send her son Satish to work in Guntur of Andhra Pradesh when he was studying Plus-1 in Pennagaram government boy’s higher secondary school.
Meanwhile, Meenakshi took loan from a local money lender and paid the job agent in Tiruvannamalai to get a job in the Gulf countries. In March, Meenakshi travelled to Saudi Arabia despite her health condition. She was paid Rs 25,000 in the first month and then, her pay was reduced to Rs 15,000 in the next few months., her sister Vasanthi said.
