'Enslaved' woman to return to India

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
Naseem Mohamed Siraj, 35, who filed suit in federal court in April, plans to return to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) tomorrow, said her attorney, Rick Mann, of the firm Holland and Knight. The lawsuit accused Tahira Juma, a Boston University medical student, and her husband, Saleem Alkhaburi, an engineer, of ''engaging in human trafficking and modern day slavery."

Siraj was denied most of her pay, only allowed supervised trips out of the home and given table scraps to eat, the suit alleged.

''She has a ticket home, which was her ultimate goal," Mann said. ''This is a woman who has not seen her family in almost two years, who has been forced to work abroad for six years because of her family's dire poverty. Now, she'll be going home to stay."
<snip>
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/06/10/enslaved_woman_to_return_to_india/

[Veggie Meathead]

1. This is a very common experience of people from India,

Bangladesh, Phillippines, Thailand and other Asian countries who go to work in Arab countries as domestic servants.They are made to work without any rest, seven days a week,365 days a year.They are not allowed to visit any friends or take a trip back home.Usually they are not even allowed to have any legal recourse in the Arab countries,especially if they are non muslims. Their passports are kept under the possession of their masters so they cannot simply walk away from their jobs.In many cases, if the servants are young girls, they are raped by the males in the family.If the women of the Arab families suspect that their husbands are sexually attracted to the girls, the girls are also abused and beaten by the women.

This is a scandal of major proportions. I am sorry to see that this is not covered by our media while the abuse and torture of the Arabs at Abu Ghraib gets full play.In the case you report here it has only come out because it happened here in Boston.If it had happened in Kuwait, Riyadh, Cairo or Abu Dhabi or God forbid, in Baghdad, you would not have a heard a peep.