A woman who was forced into slavery in Saudi Arabia has been rescued and brought back to coastal town of Udupi in Karnataka after an ordeal of over 14 months. Jacintha Mendonca who was cheated and duped by a Mumbai-based recruiting agency which had promised her a well paying job in Qatar, has been put to terrible ordeal and became a victim of trafficking came back to her hometown with the help of an NGO and some NRIs.
42-year-old Jacintha Mendonca, was first taken to Dubai from where she was flown to Saudi Arabia without her knowledge and made to work in a household at Yanbu, where she had been a slave for the last 14 months.
Talking to the media at Udupi from a hospital Jacintha Mendonca narrated her 14 months ordeal and said “it was a hell and I am back to my freedom.”
She said “I had a hellish experience in Yanbu...I was made to work day in and day out at three mansions belonging to the employer's mother, his three wives and their children...I was tortured like an animal," she alleged, adding the children called her 'gaddama' (slave). Jacintha further alleged that she was confined to the house and not allowed to venture outside.
According to Jacintha she tried to escape in November last year, but was caught by the police who sent her back to the employer.
“The escape bid brought more hardship I was badly beaten up and my head banged against the wall. I was not even given water even after pleading with them” she added. Jacintha is finally back home now, thanks to the efforts of Human Rights Protection Foundation of Udupi, who contacted the head of the NRI Forum Rodrigues in Saudi Arabia in April this year.
After all the effort Jacintha has reunited with her family in Mundrangady village in Udupi district, on September 22. Jacintha now wants the authorities to take action against those who cheated her and vows that she would never go back to the Gulf again.
Udupi Human Rights Foundation made frantic efforts through NRI Forum in Saudi Arabia in getting back Jacintha to her native place. According to Ravindra Shanbagh of Udupi Human Rights Foundation they could locate the employer in Saudi Arabia only after a series of attempts. He said she was brought back to India after the efforts of the NRI Forum in Saudi Arabia which used all legal measures to send her back to India.