Returnee woman migrant worker reunites with her family and
starts a small sewing business
The husband of Zarina was a rickshaw puller and he died in a road accident in Dhaka. The family
led a very hard life after the sudden death of the only earning member of the family. The elder
son started to live separately after marriage and did not provide any support to the family. Zarina
found it very difficult to earn a livelihood to support the family. “My daughter cannot eat, cannot
continue studying and how can I get her married in this miserable financial condition”, she said.
In this situation she was contacted by a local sub-agent and she was promised a job abroad. The
sub agent made a deal with her to send her abroad without any cost and she got a job as a
household worker in Saudi Arabia with a salary of BDT 20,000. “He used to not give me proper
food, used to beat me, and was not paying me. Kafil was very bad. Even though he tortured me a
lot, as I did not understand the language I could not tell anyone. When I complained to the office
through which I got work, they also did not help me. After that Kafil stopped my food,” she said
the words with tears in her eyes. She worked in this condition for one year and four months. For
the first four months, she received her salary and sent it to her daughter.
After that she was not paid any salary, and she could not contact her family. When the inhuman
behavior, injustice and torture became unbearable, Zarina went to the police station and
complained against her employer. However, she received no solution after complaining and the
amount of torture was increased even more. “Suddenly one day I fell very ill, even after being
admitted to the hospital, no treatment was given. I saved some money and with that the office
bought me a ticket and put me on the plane’’, she said while crying. At the airport in Bangladesh
she found that the lock of her luggage was broken and she was so sick that she could not even
speak. She complained to a man dressed as a policeman at the airport, and the police brought
her to the Probashi Kallyan desk. She regained her energy by eating dry food, water and juice
given by RMMRU on the desk. Unable to contact any member of her family from the desk, the
next day at 6 am, she was handed over to a field facilitatior. After six days of continuous search,
her family was traced and her younger son, John, arrived at the organization’s service centerand
she was handed over to her son. “If you didn’t take me here, where would I find my son? Where
would I go? What would I eat? You saved my life. May God bless you mother” Zarima said while
hugging the social worker. Reunited with her family, Zarina used the sewing machine given to her
to start a new business.
Migrant worker dreams of a happy life with her children
In 2014, Rabiya’s husband tried to kill her by poisoning her. After that her husband started conflict
with Rabiya in various ways. In 2015, her husband married again and threw her out of the house.
Since then, Rabiya lives in her father’s house with her brother. She has a son and a daughter. The
son is in class seven and the daughter is 15 years old. The husband then took her children away
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