Nepalese Recount Hazards of Foreign Household Work

By Lochana Sharma

WeNews correspondent

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Nepalese women who have worked in household jobs in Gulf states return with tales of extreme workplace abuse. But many left the country in defiance of a government ban, so they can't seek official help.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (WOMENSENEWS)--Sapana Bishwokarma, 26, has no answer when asked about the father of the 2-year-old boy who plays beside her.

She says her body trembles with fear each time she recalls her son's father. Tears trickle down her cheeks.

"I didn't know that man very well," says Bishwokarma, who requested her name be changed. "He used to rape me as many times as he wanted, any given time of the day."

Bishwokarma, of Jhapa, a district in eastern Nepal, says she moved to Saudi Arabia four years ago to work as a nanny. She says an employment agent enticed her with the prospect of a good income.

She says she paid the agent about $700 to secure the job. To get around a government ban on working in the Gulf – lifted last year but in effect at the time – she traveled first to India.

Two men received her at the airport in Saudi Arabia and took her to the house where she would work. Instead of providing child care, as promised, Bishwokarma says she was forced to work as a maid. One month into the job, she says her employer's unmarried son raped her, with the help of three other men.

"They were a family of three with a middle-aged father and two sons," she says. "I couldn't even understand their language, and I was beaten up by the men."

She says that, eventually, all the men in the family raped her.

In addition to using physical force, she says the sons also drugged her. One of the employer's sons would give her food when no one was in the house, and she'd become unconscious or sleepy after eating it. When she woke up, she would realize she had been raped.

She says she eventually got pregnant, so the elder son kicked her out and sent her back to Nepal without paying her wages.

She kept the story to herself for years, she says, and declined to use her real name because she fears that bringing her story into the media spotlight might affect her future.

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