HYDERABAD: Family members of a Hyderabad woman alleged that she has been suffering harassment and domestic violence at the hands of her employers in Saudi Arabia.
Zabeena Begum had set off for Abha city in Saudi Arabia in December, 2015 and had been working as a domestic help at the house of a doctor couple there. The woman’s brother claimed that Zabeena has been held captive.
“My sister has been working at the house of Ajjos and Wala for over a year. Despite making her work for extra hours under inhumane conditions, they have paid her only two months’ salary so far, which is 2,400 Saudi Riyals. They ill treat and verbally abuse her frequently and don’t even allow her to step outside the house.
Not just this, they also make her work at their relatives’ house. With the mental torture and exploitation she has been through for so long, her health has badly deteriorated. She is unfit to work and impatient to return home. She has been constantly crying but her employers have held her as a captive in their house,” the victim’s brother Hamid Khan told Express.
Hamid appealed to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to rescue Zabeena through Society for Integrated Progress and Human Empowerment (SIPAHE). “Once when Zabeena had escaped from slavery and approached Riyadh police, instead of helping her the police officials took her back to her employers,” Hamid alleged.