JEDDAH: Aisha Sultana and Fatima Bebe were one of many who were drenched by Wednesday’s downpour in Jeddah. But unlike most, they did not have a place to dry off. They live on the street and feed themselves from the kindness of strangers as they wait for justice. The two Indian women arrived in Riyadh five months ago to work as maids in a household. Instead, the man who brought them to Saudi Arabia had made an arrangement with another man with less than honorable intentions. According to the complaint they filed with the Consulate General of India in Jeddah, the two women were illegally passed on to a third party — a labor placement agency — managed by a man who sexually harassed Sultana and physically abused both women. “We did not leave our country and our families to come here and do haram (sin),” Bebe told Arab News. Sultana said the man coerced some of the women at the agency into the sex trade. “The boss at the agency told me to do like the other women. I refused and he beat me,” said Sultana. Now in Jeddah, the two women have filed a complaint against their sponsor and the person in charge of the recruitment agency with the Indian Consulate. The women provided Arab News with the identity of the sponsor, but he cannot be named at this point due to legal concerns. While waiting to be hired as maids at the agency, Bebe described the inhuman and demeaning treatment she and Sultana as well as the other women received. “The boss at the agency would threaten to tear up the women’s passports unless they heed his orders,” Bebe said. She said he would also threaten to accuse them of stealing from their employers and hand them over to the police. Most of the women were quite young and were crying all the time. Bebe and Sultana said their day at the agency began and ended with abuse. “All day in the agency we have to serve the boss and his friends, then at midnight he would load us like cattle in a van and drive us to his home. In the van there is so little space that one cannot even move one’s hand. And at his home we have to also work — he has a very big house. Before he goes to sleep he locks us up in rooms. Then in the morning we have to do all household chores and cook for his family before going to the agency to work there,” Bebe said, adding that this became a routine as they were forced to wait for a family to hire them from the agency. During this waiting period, Bebe says, many men come and look at the women. Some, according to Bebe, are hired to work as maids and others taken into rooms at the agency. Once recruited for temporary housekeeping work, things weren’t much better. Bebe claims she was physically abused and locked in a room for days until she started showing signs of dehydration. “Once I told one of them (a woman) to fear Allah,” said Bebe. “She told me ‘Allah will give whoever what He wants.’ Then she climbed the stairs and fell and hurt her leg. She got angrier after that and yelled at me that I prayed to Allah to punish her, and then she started beating me. After this I was returned to the agency where the boss without asking me what had happened also beat me. Neither the family nor the agency paid me a riyal. This is slavery.” Finally, the agency found a family in Makkah that needed two housekeepers and Sultana and Bebe were sent there. Although they claim the family treated them decently, they decided to flee to Jeddah to find help from the Indian Consulate. The missions of labor-remitting countries, such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, provide shelter services to runaway maids. But Sultana and Bebe were out of luck and turned away from the consulate after filing their complaint. On Wednesday, the two women waited in the flooded streets of Jeddah, hoping that somebody would help them get back home. “We don’t have anything except the clothes we are wearing,” said Sultana. Bebe and Sultana’s matter will most likely take time before they get justice. Until then, unless provided help by the Indian Consulate or another source, the women are left practically on the street. Sultana and Bebe’s situation reflects a growing phenomenon — not just in Saudi Arabia but in many countries — where women are drawn with a promise of honest labor until they become entrapped in a foreign country dependent on criminals for their room and board. Many become sex slaves and prostitutes. Bebe and Sultana have pushed back, but the Indian mission has yet to provide them shelter as they move forward with trying to bring justice and find a way back home to their families. (NOTE: In a previous report Aisha Sultana and Fatima Bebe were identified under the pseudonyms Jamila and Zarina. They have since provided consent to have their names published.) | 
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