WOMAN STUCK IN OMAN RETURNS HOME

A woman from Hyderabad, who was stuck in Oman and not allowed to leave her job by her employer for several months, is back in the city following intervention by the ministry of external affairs.

Shakera Begum, went to Oman a year-and-a-half ago, to work as domestic help following the death of her husband. A resident of Yakutpura, she was hoping to save money to help pay for her daughter’s marriage.

A private agency which organised the employment, sent her to Muscat but, after reaching there, she discovered that the promises made by the agency about work and earnings were false. She was forced to do work that was not part of what she had been told, and she was also harassed. When she wanted to leave, her employer would not return her passport and stopped paying her salary for many months, the daughter said.

“My mother’s phone was snatched away and there was no contact for quite some time. I approached an NGO, Public Grievance Association, which helped my mother come back,” the daughter said.

Such cases are common, said Sr Lissy Joseph, honorary secretary of Telangana Domestic Workers Union. “The agencies misguide hundreds of economically backward people for the commission they get from the foreign employer when the domestic help lands in the foreign country. They are forced to work extra hours, at some places brutally ill-treated, but they have no other go. The government should take strict action against such agencies,” she said. Though the state government has set up the Telangana Overseas Manpower Company Limited, to ensure people searching for employment abroad, particularly in the Gulf countries, are not exploited, the awareness about this is low, she added.