By TCN News
A woman from Karnataka’s coastal district of Udupi, who was forced to work as a housemaid in a remote town in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after being duped by an Indian travel agent, has finally returned home safe thanks to the selfless efforts of activists of Indian Social Forum (ISF), an organization of Indian expats.
Hailing from a middle class family in Udupi, Malathi Nayak had a dream of working in the Middle East to financially uplift her family. A travel agent promised her a job as a hospital nurse with all service benefits in Saudi Arabia.
However, after landing in Wadi ad-Dawasir, a small town located over 600 kms away from Riyadh, the national capital, she realised that she had been duped by the travel agent. She was actually sent there to work as a maid in her visa sponsor’s house and not as a hospital nurse.
However, she had no other option but following the order of the sponsor. She was literally kept under house arrest, as the sponsor neither gave her salary on time nor provided her a phone to contact her family members in India.
After nine months of ordeal as a housemaid, she managed to contact her family members in Udupi through phone and explained her situation. The helpless family members contacted Sandeep Shetty, an expatriate from Udupi, who is working in Jeddah and requested him to help her to return home. Shetty approached the ISF, which had helped several stranded expatriates in Saudi Arabia in the past.
A team of ISF comprising of Ismail Mangalapete, Shahul Hameed Vamanjooru and Sayed Abdul Haq then contacted the stranded woman and assured her of all necessary support. They also contacted Indian embassy in this regard. However, unable to face the mental torture in the house, she ran away and contacted the ISF members, who asked her to stay in the house of Abdul Raheem, an Indian expatriate from Namil Nadu in Wadi ad-Dawasir.
After constant follow up, the ISF activists managed to convince the Indian embassy in Riyadh the severity of the case. Following the intervention of the embassy, Malathi boarded an India-bound flight at Riyadh International Airport on September 3 and reached Udupi next day via Bengaluru.