Chennai: More than half a dozen workers returned here this week with tales of abuse, harassment and sexual exploitation. Most of them are from broken families and were duped by city-based agents. These women are victims to agents who promised them a better future in the Gulf, only to be abused and underpaid by employers or pushed into the sex trade.

“When the agent, who is my neighbour, told me I could earn a handsome salary as a domestic help in Kuwait, I agreed without a second thought,” said Sundari, one of the victims who returned to the city. The 45-year-old woman went to Kuwait after taking loan from the bank to pay her agent. Sundari’s dream turned into a nightmare the day she landed in Kuwait and started working for a family. “They forced me to clean the bathrooms with cid without any protection. My skin broke into blisters and when I asked them to take me to a doctor, they refused,” Sundari said. “They cut my hair after they found a hair in their food and did not give food for the entire day,” she said. The next day she managed to escape from there and reached at the embassy.

According to Nadhiya, a 30-year-old woman who escaped from a sex-trafficking racket, thousands are languishing in the Gulf without any help. Anushya, another woman who returned from the Gulf, said her agent pocketed a good sum for selling her to a family in Kuwait. When her employer refused to pay her salary, she called the agent several times, but he did not answer. “My papers were with my employers and I had nowhere to go,” the 27-year-old woman said. “I sought refuge in the embassy after escaping by slithering down a drainpipe and had to wait two months for my passport to be returned,” the woman said.