“I wanted to kill myself after what they did to me, but I kept thinking about my child.”

Sima, 26

The 26-year-old mother of one was forced to sell her father’s business in her home country when he fell ill to pay for his treatment. However, Sima’s husband absconded with the money not long after her father passed away.

Left with few options but determined to make a better life for herself and her child, Sima went to a job agency and requested work as a housemaid in the UAE. The agency provided her with a phone number of a man living in the UAE who they said would help her. She called him, provided him with Dh2,000 and started the application process.

One day, during his regular calls to her, he asked her to marry him. She agreed and they exchanged vows over the phone.

She moved to the UAE in 2015, and started her job as a housemaid and the man kept calling her to come and meet him, which she refused.

“I liked my job, I didn’t want to get fired. But he said he was my husband and that I had to see him. He promised to bring me back before anyone noticed.”

So one day, she stepped out to meet him. After they met, the man took her to an apartment and locked her up and told her that from then onwards, she would have to have sex with men for money.

Shocked and unable to believe what she was hearing, Sima re- fused. “He then started kicking and beating me, it was horrible,” she recalls, tears streaming down her face.

“For a whole week, he brought one man after another. I didn’t have one moment of peace. They didn’t care when I told them I was the mother of a child,” she said, choking up.

Often, she would be physically ill with her trauma but even that did not deter the man from forcing her to carry on.

Sima was made to change locations several times and every time they got into his car, she looked for ways of escaping until one day she got the opportunity.

“While driving [me to some place], I noticed that he had forgotten to lock the doors of his car, so I opened the door on my side and jumped out of the car and started running.”

With the help of people, she got to the nearest police station.

“The police calmed me down and told me to not worry about anything.”

Soon, she found shelter at Ewa’a and she has been provided with psychological help. Ewa’a has also been supporting her child in her home country, for which she said she is extremely grateful.

She does not know exactly how long she was held in captivity because in the places where she stayed, the windows of her room were blacked out. She did not know day from night.

Ewa’a’s staff said the only thing Sima kept talking about when she arrived was her child. Being cut off from even talking to her child since her departure made her already fragile mental condition more unstable.

Sima suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and her suicidal tendencies require her to be under close observation and medication. Ewa’a is providing money for her child’s school fees and other requirements.

Sima has been at Ewa’a for around six months and her only wish is to be reunited with her child.