A victim of human trafficking gets her freedom

 

(Ch Sushil Rao: This is an entry from my diary on 7 February 2017. This detailed recollection captures the agony of a woman from Hyderabad who was trafficked to Saudi Arabia. As a journalist, I wrote news reports about the plight of the victim who was eventually rescued. Some sentences have been put in direct quotes to capture the essence of what was spoken. Covering this case was deeply satisfying — the reports played a small but real part in bringing a trapped woman back home.)

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She was face to face with a harsh reality. The woman from Hyderabad was locked inside a small room. Her hands were tied with a rope, the other end fastened to a window grille in the dingy enclosure into which she had been pushed. The 30-year-old woman felt humiliated. Agony overwhelmed her. Tears welled up in her eyes.

The employer in Saudi Arabia was cruel to her.

"I paid Rs 3 lakh for you," he shouted. "Do you think I will allow you to leave after spending so much money?"

The woman wanted to return to her family in Hyderabad, India.

She had travelled to Saudi Arabia dreaming of earning money because her family lived in severe poverty. Her father had died. There were five daughters and two sons in the family. A local recruiting agent had approached them with promises of a better life. The agent claimed she could send the young woman and her mother to Saudi Arabia as housemaids where they could earn 1,300 riyals a month. To the struggling family, it sounded like hope.

The mother and daughter travelled to Saudi Arabia, but within 20 days the mother fell ill and returned to India. The employer, however, made it clear that the daughter could not even think of going back home. She had to work, whether she wanted to or not.

She was made to work not only in his house but in four other houses as well. In one household alone there were nine family members. The workload was crushing. She moved from one house to another performing household chores before returning to the employer's residence. The employer showed little concern for her condition.

The woman had no idea where exactly she had been taken. Nobody had told her that she would land in a place around 430 kilometres north of Riyadh and not far from the Kuwait and Iraqi borders. She knew nobody there. To those around her, she was merely a servant.

Eventually she could no longer bear the workload. Gathering courage, she made up her mind to escape. She no longer wished to live like a slave.

But the employer had been watching her closely. He caught her attempting to flee and subjected her to cruelty she had never imagined. He beat her with an electric cord. He stripped her naked and locked her in isolation.

"You will get neither food nor water," he told her before leaving the house.

The dark room became her prison. If she agreed to continue serving him, she could step out. Otherwise, loneliness and despair awaited her inside those walls.

Back in Hyderabad, the promises made by the local recruiting agent now seemed painfully hollow. Had she not assured them that life in Saudi Arabia would be comfortable?

"Please get me out of here," the woman pleaded with her mother whenever she managed to speak over the phone.

The employer occasionally permitted her to call home, and every time she begged to be rescued.

Despite the punishment and intimidation, she remained firm in her desire to return to India. Even the employer's children appeared disturbed by her condition. When their father was away, they would quietly throw pieces of kuboos (Arab flatbread) through the window into the room.

"What you are doing is wrong," an Indian expatriate from Nizamabad told the employer one day. "You cannot treat a woman like this. Keeping her tied up and starving her could bring serious legal consequences. Treat her properly and send her back to India."

The expatriate had been running a music shop in Haffar Al Batin for nearly two decades. The employer was one of his customers.

The employer was stunned. How had this man learned what was happening inside his house? Nobody nearby knew that the Indian woman had been confined in a room.

"I am advising you as a friend," the shop owner repeated. "This could create major problems for you."

The expatriate had never met the woman. He did not even know her name. But he closely followed the rescue mission that social activist Amjed Ullah Khan from Hyderabad had already taken up campaigning for her rescue.

The woman's mother had approached Amjed Ullah Khan for help. He listened carefully, documented the details, and helped register a complaint against the recruiting agent at the Banjara Hills police station. Earlier, the mother had struggled for nearly two months to even understand how to lodge a complaint.

An FIR was eventually registered against the recruiting agent.

From December 2017 onward, Amjed Ullah Khan repeatedly wrote to the Union external affairs minister seeking intervention to rescue the woman trapped in Saudi Arabia. The woman's mother also appealed to a Telangana minister handling NRI affairs. As pressure mounted from both the Telangana government and the Union government, the Indian Embassy in Riyadh began examining the case seriously.

Then came the knock on the employer's door.

It did not take him long to realise that he would have to release the woman he had held captive for 30 months without salary.

How had the authorities traced him?

The answer came from the music shop owner.

"I know the man you are referring to in your mission to rescue the woman. I follow you on social media," he informed Amjed Ullah Khan over the phone from Saudi Arabia. He shared the employer's contact details, which were passed on to the Union ministry of external affairs.

The Indian Embassy in Riyadh contacted the employer and explained the legal implications of illegally confining the woman. Pressure mounted quickly.

Meanwhile, another effort to extract money from the woman's family was unfolding in Mumbai.

The recruiting agent in Hyderabad had worked through a travel operator based in Dongri, Mumbai, which had arranged the travel to Saudi Arabia. The operator demanded money from the woman's mother to facilitate her daughter's return.

With enormous difficulty, the mother borrowed Rs 70,000 and paid it.

"When will my daughter return?" she asked.

The answer shocked her.

"This amount only covers the early return conditions because she did not complete the mandatory two-year work period," she was told. "Arrange another Rs 70,000 and we will try to bring her back."

The mother was devastated.

Eventually, with assistance from the Indian Embassy in Riyadh, the woman finally returned to India.

The nightmare ended for the victim.

(Ch Sushil Rao: This is an entry from my diary on 7 February 2017. This detailed recollection captures the agony of a woman from Hyderabad who was trafficked to Saudi Arabia. As a journalist, I wrote news reports about the plight of the victim who was eventually rescued. Some sentences have been put in direct quotes to capture the essence of what was spoken. Covering this case was deeply satisfying — the reports played a small but real part in bringing a trapped woman back home.)

Image: AI Generated