It was her great good fortune that she somehow learnt through a compatriot friend that the Nepali embassy in Kuwait was searching for her. [break]
“I then daringly slipped away from my employer´s house and reached the embassy,” said Dil Kumari Friday, sitting next to her brother Aspal, who had been searching for her ever since the 16-year-old disappeared from Gumdi VDC, Gorkha district.
Dil Kumari´s family had believed that she was working abroad and would return in good condition as promised by local broker Sher Gurung. “After he went out of contact and she was never again heard of, we sensed something was wrong and went to the police,” said Aspal.
Nepal Police corresponded with Nepali embassies in the Gulf asking them to look for Dil Kumari.
Two other girls whom brokers picked up from Gorkha along with her might still be in Kuwait, she told the press a day after she landed back in Nepal.
Dil Kumari says there must be hundreds of Nepali girls in Kuwait who are forced to live hellish lives as housemaids.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rana Bahadur Chand, chief of Metropolitan Crime Investigation Division (MCID), said Dil Kumari was a victim of rackets that have been trafficking Nepali women to the Gulf as bonded labor.
Unlike in other human-trafficking cases, the brokers are found to have invested money in the girls. “Local brokers could have been funded by agents overseas,” Chand said.
Dil Kumari´s home coming takes place at a time when MCID has carried out a sting operation against a fake passport ring that had been cheating Nepali women with promises of lucrative jobs in Kuwait for a minimal charge of Rr 26,000. MCID has arrested five members of the racket.
“As fake passports are involved, the racketeers seem to have flown the girls to Kuwait from Indian soil,” Chand said.
Dil Kumari was lured by Sher Gurung with prospects of a ´bright´ future and kept in the capital for about three weeks while he brought her a passport. She was then taken overland to New Delhi where she waited for 20 days for a flight to Kuwait.
“I had to do everything for a big family including 10 children. The head of the house would sometimes beat me up, and I also went without food for days. I was even prohibited from looking out the window, let alone going outside,” Dil Kumari said, adding that other Nepali women might be in even more pathetic situations.
“I at least got 15 months´ salary from my employer who was also compelled to return my passport after the embassy intervened,” she said.
SSP Chand said the government should visit places abroad where Nepali women are possibly held in captivity like Dil Kumari. “Based on information gleaned from there, it would be easy to bust the traffickers here,” he said.
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