Slaves without Borders: From Nepal through the Persian Gulf…..
“JEDDAH: At least two Nepalese housemaids are left every day at the gates of the Nepalese Embassy in Riyadh. Many of the housemaids, who have legal Kuwaiti residency documents, are brought to the Kingdom on visit visas, made to work for Saudi families and then abandoned or brought to the embassy. “Some Saudis hire housemaids from their relatives and friends in Kuwait. But such women cannot be sent back to Nepal via Kuwait as it would incur extra expenses, including a SR10,000 fine because they have overstayed their visit visas. The easiest thing to do is to bring them to our embassy, sometimes with their passports and one-way tickets,” said Khadga Prasad Dahal, first secretary at the Nepalese Embassy. On May 16, the Nepalese Embassy repatriated 16 Nepalese housemaids, six of whom had come from Kuwait. Three of the women were either physically sick or mentally deranged. There are an estimated 50,000 Nepalese housemaids in Saudi Arabia with 10,000 in Riyadh alone, said Dahal, adding that the maids are illegal as Katmandu has banned Nepalese nationals from working as domestic servants abroad. To get around the ban, Nepalese women, many of them uneducated, are brought to Mumbai where visas are arranged at the Saudi consulate……..”
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