‘Trafficked women are taken care of at centre’

Once at the centre, the women are cared for and supported until their legal procedures are completed.

“We provide medical and mental check-ups to the women, and we offer legal advice and education programmes as well, as some of them do not know Arabic or may not know how to read,” added Al Balushi.

Court cases

“We also supply the women with pocket money and weekly phone calls to their families. The women only stay until their court cases are complete, then we provide them with the means to travel back to their home countries. We try to supply them with enough money so that they can go back to their village and families rather than be stranded at the airport,” Al Balushi said.

While Oman records a small number of human trafficking cases annually, Assistant Public Prosecutor Nasser Al Riyami believes that agencies can sometimes struggle with identifying cases.

Coercion or fraud

“Human trafficking can be identified as the transport, harbour, retrieval, or employment of a person by way of force, coercion, or fraud,” Al Riyami said “There are cases where workers flee from their employers or prostitution. In such cases, if you investigate you will find that the case is related to trafficking. But not all human trafficking cases are that simple.”

Human trafficking case

Marwa Al Balushi described to Times of Oman a horrifying case in Sohar from 2016. An expat mother of two had fled after working for two days and was tricked into entering a house with a stranger. She was then sexually abused and dropped off a 3-storey building, breaking her bones and making her unable to protect herself. The woman remained in Darl al Wifaq for more than a year.