by LOCHANA SHARMA
(WOMENSENEWS)–Sapana Bishwokarma, 26, has no answer when asked about the father of the 2-year-old boy who plays beside her.
She says her body trembles with fear each time she recalls her son’s father. Tears trickle down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know that man very well,” says Bishwokarma, who requested her name be changed. “He used to rape me as many times as he wanted, any given time of the day.”
Bishwokarma, of Jhapa, a district in eastern Nepal, says she moved to Saudi Arabia four years ago to work as a nanny. She says an employment agent enticed her with the prospect of a good income.
She says she paid the agent about $700 to secure the job. To get around a government ban on working in the Gulf – lifted last year but in effect at the time – she traveled first to India.
Two men received her at the airport in Saudi Arabia and took her to the house where she would work. Instead of providing child care, as promised, Bishwokarma says she was forced to work as a maid. One month into the job, she says her employer’s unmarried son raped her, with the help of three other men.
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