My father told me that my...mother was killed in the tsunami... [I also] lost my grandmother, my cousin, my younger sister’s son…. My father wanted me to send some money for my son’s medical expenses. I asked the employer for money, they refused…. I [wanted] to leave because why should I be here if they are not giving money to send to my son and Baba [her male employer] is trying to misbehave with me. I did not have any chance to leave because everything was locked up. When Baba and Mama were out they locked the doors to the outside. I did not run away because I did not have a chance, because there is no house nearby.
[After my escape] I was staying [in the mosque] and I knew Babas and Mamas, a lot of men and women, come there to pick maids…. There was a lady who came and saw me and told me she would pay me 700 riyals [$182], and I would have to look after only her two children…. My passport was with my earlier Baba…. That was the reason that she [the lady] was paying me more. She was paying extra 300 riyals because I was staying without a passport or visa and she knew that when I had to come back to Sri Lanka I would have to go to the embassy.
If they knocked on my door after midnight I had to get up and I had to cook when they told me
The lady refused to give me a separate room to stay so I used to stay in an empty space on the staircase.
When I went to the police station, they told me, ‘You are a housemaid, you are from Sri Lanka; he is from this country, he is a wealthy man, you can’t argue with him, it’s better that you go back to your country.
Narrative as told to Human Rights Watch for their report “As If I Am Not Human”:Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia.
All credit given.
