Gagansara Shahi robbed, beaten by Saudi employer

BARDIYA, Sept 14: A Nepali woman laborer, who went to Saudi Arabia about two years ago with hopes of helping her jobless husband manage two square meals, has been robbed of her meager savings by her own employers.



Gagansara Shahi, 35, wife of Bhim Khan, 40, of Shivapur village in Bardiya district, has been forced by her employers to live on open streets in Riyadh of Saudi Arabia.[break] According to Raj Bahadur Shahi, brother of Gagansara, who spoke to her sister over phone, she has been brutally beaten. "My sister asked us to rescue her," Shahi said. "But we are helpless. We have not been able to do anything to rescue her."



According to Shahi, Gagansara had gone to Saudi Arabia through three local manpower agents, Man Bahadur Rana, Shikhar Basnet and Janga Bahadur Khadka. However, since Gagansara phoned her family members to rescue her, no one is in contact. Republica´s attempts to contact them yielded no result.



A couple of months after she flew to Saudi Arabia, Gagansara had sent about Rs 50,000 back home. Bhim, a former Nepal Army (NA) solider, used that money to pay school fees of his three children. Gagansara has not sent home even a single penny since then.



As Gagansara told her family members over phone, her employers, irritated with her after she fell sick, also snatched Rs 150,000, her total saving, from her. The employers also took away her mobile phone. "Now, no one receives our call," Shahi said. "Even if somebody picks up our call, no one answers." She has not been given food ever since she fell ill.



"I am dying. Take me away from here as soon as possible," Gagansara had told Shahi when she contacted the last time. He said, "We do not even know if she is alive." A low-rank NA soldier, Shahi does not know where to go and whom to meet to rescue his sister.



A pall of gloom has descended on Gagansara´s family after she first called her husband Bhim crying for help. "We were happy despite being poor," Bhim said. "We are now devastated." A former NA soldier, Bhim gave up his job following Maoist threats during the insurgency. He is not only jobless now, but also sick and frail.



"My wife chose to go abroad as I failed to make money," he said. "Now, she, too, is sick and trapped by her masters."

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