Karnataka: After a year of Arabian nightmare, Jacintha returns home

Udupi: After struggling for over a year, Jacintha, who was assured a Home Nurse job at Qatar, but was forced to work as servant in Saudi Arabia, has finally succeeded in returning home.

Jacintha had to fight a long battle where she had to undergo physical and mental torture by her owners. "It was literally a hell which I experienced there," Jacintha recollected her horror with tears.

"The family members would close the door and lock it and go. I had to work there over 16 hours a day with no proper food. I had to work from 6 am to 2 am. By 6 am I had to wake up and start working again," she told reporters in Udupi.

"I was not provided proper food. Though I am a patient, I was not provided any proper medicine also. If I tried to call through phone, the employer would beat me up the next day. I request anybody who wants to go to Gulf countries for job to verify properly and then go. Nobody should be cheated and undergo the experience I underwent," she added.

Jacintha hails from Mudarangadi village in Udupi district. The responsibility of the family with three children and their education fell on her last year after her husband passed away.  She was in search of an employment when she noticed an advertisement in a local newspaper which stated that an Indian family in Qatar needed a Home Nurse.

Jacintha decided to take the offer and contacted the recruitment agency in Mumbai, headed by one Shabaz Khan. Jacintha readily agreed the job as she was assured Rs 25,000 per month and also passport and visa would be arranged by the agency.

She went to Mumbai from where through Goa and Delhi she was taken to Dubai on June 10, 2016. Two other women too were with her. Though she was assured a job at Qatar, Jacintha was shocked to see that she had ended up at Yanbu in Saudi Arabia.

Apart from long working hours, Jacintha was starving as she only got leftovers. The employer had declared that Jacintha would not be sent back unless the contract ends. It was not that Jacintha did not try to escape. Her effort in November to return to India failed when one of the neighbour who assured to help her took her to the police station from where she ended up at the house of her employer. Her effort to escape annoyed the employer and her family who beat her and slammed her head to the wall until she lost consciousness.

Later with the help of an Indian driver, she succeeded in contacting her children. A priest directed the children to approach Human Rights Protection Foundation in Udupi.

The Foundation which managed to get the details of the employer was told by the latter that Rs 24,000 Saudi Riyals (About Rs 5 lakh) was paid to Indian agent with a contract for two years. He said that Jacintha would be allowed to return if the money was paid. However the family had not received any money!

Despite contacting the police and external affairs ministry, when the government machinery failed, the Foundation asked the Kannadigas of Gulf for help.

"The NRI Forum immediately responded. With the combined efforts of these Samaritans, Jacintha successfully reached Jeddah on September 16 and finally now to India on September 22," Foundation president Dr Ravindranath Shanbhag said.

Shanbhag said that in spite of being released by the employer, Jacintha could not return to India immediately since she did not have the work permit.  As her employer had bought her through the human trafficking network, she was employed  without a work permit! "There was every possibility of Jacintha’s  arrest and imprisonment. Roshan and his team worked together to contact the Labor department officials in order to obtain the work permit," he added.