There are many more Indian domestic workers trapped in a similar fashion and struggling in Gulf countries.
Chennai: But for a Pakistani national who helped a 51-year-old Tamil woman with his phone to call her son in Tiruvallur when she escaped from her employer’s house in Dubai, and facilitate her return home through an NGO, the woman would have been languishing in the Gulf under difficult conditions. In August 21 Sahira Beevi (name changed) managed to sneak out of her employer’s house and started waiting for the promised help to arrive to pick her up and take her to the Indian mission.
As time ticked away, there was no sign of the NGO representatives who had promised to wait in a particular place with a car. As she became restless, a Pakistani national approached her and offered to help. She managed to convey her situation broken Hindi and Arabic to him.
“He offered his mobile phone to me and I called up my son because all my communication to the NGO was only through him. He then called Sister Valarmathi of the National Domestic Workers’ Movement who in turn contacted NGO representatives in Dubai,” Sahira Beevi said after she landed in Chennai on Monday from Dubai.
For Sahira it was a new lease of life. Though she had worked in Gulf countries twice as a domestic worker in the past, this trip on a tourist visa turned out to be a nightmare. During her earlier stints she had picked up Arabic and managed to converse with local people. She reached Dubai in January. From then to August this year she worked in three different households and was also kept in detention by a woman agent named Nargis when she complained about tortures by employers.
“Nargis had kept Sahira’s passport and other travel documents. She asked Sahira to pay '1.8 lakh to get the passport back or continue working in those houses with abusive employers without break for 20 hours. Only after reaching the Indian mission did the Indian officials manage to get back Sahira’s passport and salary kept by Nargis before sending her back to India on Monday,” Valarmathi added.
There are many more Indian domestic workers trapped in a similar fashion and struggling in Gulf countries. It is best that we do not go through such untrustworthy agents and get into terrible homes there, said Sahira, when this newspaper contacted her.
