Kohinur (not her real name), a Bangladeshi female migrant worker, went abroad last year to work as a cleaner at a madrasa in the United Arab Emirates.
Instead of getting her promised job, the representative of the Bangladeshi recruiting agency in the UAE placed Kohinur in a house as a domestic help, where her employer’s son raped her. She was sent back to the country after becoming pregnant, and gave birth to a son last week.
Kohinur, who has been receiving treatment at a Mohammadpur health facility after giving birth, has no plan of rearing up the child.
“If somebody gives me some money, I would give up the child as my husband would not allow me to rear it up,” Kohinur told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Kohinur said she and her child came to Dhaka for treatment after she gave birth on Wednesday at her village home in Mymensingh, with the help of Bangladeshi Obhibashi Mohila Sramik Association (BOMSA), a non-government organisation.
“Through a middleman named Azahar at my locality in Mymensingh, and Mostafa in Dhaka, I spent Tk70,000 and went to Dubai to work as a cleaner in a madrasa for a monthly wage of Tk20,000; but I was given work as a domestic help,” Kohinur said.
“The local middleman promised that he would send me through a good office. I agreed to go as my family is poor,” said Kohinur, who has a daughter and two sons with her husband. “I went in March 2013 and stayed there for nine months.”
She said: “As housemaid I started to work in the house at a place named Rasul Kene, and after a month I was given 800 dirham and the office [representative of the recruiting agency in Dubai] took the entire money from me.
“At the house I was given a separate room to stay, but there was no scope to lock it up. One of my employer’s sons named Selim who works in police department came to my room at night and raped me,” Kohinur said.
“Every week he came to the house and raped me. If I cried out for help, he forced my mouth shut so that I could not make any sound. I was also beaten up…Out of fear I did not disclose it to anybody,” she added.
However, at one stage, the presence of the baby was detected when the representative of the recruiting agency had Kohinur undergo an ultrasonogram, and consequently she was sent back home at the end of November last year.
Kohinur and her family tried to abort the child during the seventh month of her pregnancy, but changed their mind after the BOMSA promised support.
Sumaiya Islam, founding director of the BOMSA, said: “We did not allow the abortion as the baby had already grown up.
“We have been working to ensure the rights of female workers and we want justice for this victim and we demand that the government do something for the female workers,” she said.
Like Kohinur, many female migrant workers allegedly face various types of tortures, abuse and harassment. Recently, a group of female migrants returned from Hong Kong, claiming to have been victims of torture and job termination.
“We have zero tolerance to abuse and torture of female migrant workers, but it is not possible to protect every single of them,” Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hosssain told the Dhaka Tribune over phone yesterday.
“If the victim files any complaint, we will try to realise compensation from the agency and the employer,” the minister added.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, 286,000 female migrant workers have gone to different countries between 1991 and February 2014.
