HYDERABAD: She was a maidservant who earned `2,000 per month. Her family depended on it. Then came the opportunity of going to Saudi Arabia. A housekeeping job at a rich Sheikh’s house in Riyadh. Asima took the plane to Riyadh in December 2015. She was 21 but her passport said 34.
She survived no more than five months. The family was in-formed that she succumbed to Tuberculosis while undergoing treatment last Thursday. To get corpse home the family had to spend a fortune—the kind of fortune they hoped she would make in Arabia.
This is the untold story of people whose Gulf dream becomes a nightmare. Beyond the horror tales of slavery and abuse, there is the trauma of families securing the return of trapped relatives, dead or alive.
Ghousia Khatoon, Asima’s mother, has paid an agent `4 lakh so far to get Asima’s body back. “I even sold our house. If we are asked to leave this place, we have no place to go.”