Starved, Denied Water: Hyderabad Woman’s Nightmare in Saudi Arabia

“I would see myself dying there,” says Noorjahan Begum, who had gone to Saudi Arabia to work as a domestic help.

35-year-old Noorjahan Begum led a difficult life in Kishanbagh, Hyderabad. Her husband used to do odd jobs, but it was just not enough for the family of five to survive.

So, to help boost the family income, in September last year, Noorjahan got in touch with a travel agent. She was offered a job in Saudi Arabia as a domestic help. She was also promised between Rs 20,000 to 22,000 – or 1,200 riyals – as a monthly salary, with food, medical expenses and accommodation included.

Though Noorjahan had never worked before, she decided to take up the offer. What followed was an ordeal.

“There was a time when I thought I would die here. I had no way of contacting my family or seeking help. I would see myself breathing my last here, all alone,” recalls Noorjahan, who was brought back to Hyderabad around November 18.

It began when the agent told Noorjahan that she need not worry about not clearing the medical tests to obtain the visa. Noorjahan had been diagnosed with a thyroid problem as well as high blood sugar about five years ago.

She says that the agent told her that they could bribe officials to get the medical clearance. “I didn’t give him the money, but he got it somehow,” she says.

She was then flown to Medina via Dubai, though she had been promised a direct flight from Hyderabad. Once there, she was taken to her kafeel (employer), in whose house she was made to work for long hours with one meal a day. She recounts:

He would give me a piece of bun with some paste on it in the morning. He would speak in Arabic or English, neither of which I understand. I would point to food so that they would give it to me, but they never did. I wasn’t even given a bar of soap or toothpaste.

She adds that they would give her chocolates and some sweets and expect her to make a meal out of them. “I had high blood sugar but I was desperate with hunger. I had no choice but to make do,” she recalls.

Within nine days of being there, Noorjahan’s health worsened. She could not speak to her husband because she didn’t have a phone and the family who she worked for wouldn’t give her the medicines she needed.

Somehow she managed to communicate to them that she was sick and wanted to come back to India.

A man in the house told her that they would take her to Jeddah airport from where she could take a flight home. He took her in a car and then left her in the locked vehicle for almost two hours as he went to speak to the agents there.

Being stuck there with no food or water in the heat and not knowing what was happening to her is a memory that still haunts Noorjahan.

The agents at Jeddah made her speak to an agent in Hyderabad who demanded a few lakh rupees. Noorjahan said that she would pay him the money in installments, but he refused.

Noorjahan was then taken to a second kafeel. “When I reached there, there was a pile of utensils I was told to wash. I think it was 9-10 days worth of utensils because it took me six hours to wash them,” she says.

The situation did not get any better here, with the family ignoring her pleas for food and medicines. As Noorjahan’s health worsened, her ability to work went down. She was sent to a third kafeel after two days because she could no longer work. The third one kept her for a day and sent her to a fourth.

Noorjahan says that the fourth kafeel had a huge family with 9-10 children. She spent over a month here. And while they gave her food, she did not get the medical attention she needed.

I had spoken to my husband only once since I came there. There was a point where I was so sick I could not speak. I thought I would die.

It was in the beginning of November that Noorjahan’s husband reached out to Amjed Ullah Khan, who heads the Hyderabad-based group Majlis Bachao Tahreek (MBT) ,

Khan contacted local police and a complaint was lodged at Bahadurpura Police Station. In a Facebook post Khan put up on Friday, he writes the matter was also taken up with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the Indian Embassy in Jeddah.

“After much pressure and team work, she was allowed to leave Saudi Arabia and returned safely to Hyderabad,” he writes.

Though Noorjahan is back home, she is still recovering from the toll the experience took on her health.

Their financial crisis has resulted in their eldest son being rusticated from college due to non-payment of fees. He works now, along with his father, to support the family.

“If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have fallen so sick. But even if I get better, I don’t want to work now. I will survive on whatever we can manage,” Noorjahan says.