She claims she was working for a maid-placement agency and that Mumbai-based recruitment agents brought her to Saudi Arabia eight months ago. 

She was promised a nanny’s job for a family with a monthly salary of SR850. (Recruiters and employers in Saudi Arabia rarely distinguish between the role of maid and the specific duties of a nanny, the latter of which requires experience and training in post-natal care in the case of taking care of newborns and infants.)

However after arriving in the Kingdom, she was not given the job promised but rather commissioned out as a temporary worker by recruitment agents who did not pay her. She recalls being transported by vehicle six hours outside of Jeddah. Her passport and iqama were taken from her.

Last week, Qamarunnisa ran away from the place where she was working after falling ill and managed to reach Jeddah. She was provided medical care by Indian Consulate, which has began the process of her repatriation.

Qamarunnisa says she is the mother of two daughters, one is married, and had adopted an orphan boy who turned out to be HIV positive, suggesting he was born with the virus already in his blood. The boy died, leaving her with debt from the medical treatment. Her husband, she says, is an alcoholic. It was these circumstances that led her to seek work in Saudi Arabia.