Another sexually abused woman returns to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia with baby boy

A 32-year old woman returned Bangladesh with her six-month old boy from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, reports news agency UNB.

Her employer terminated her contract, she was sexually abused, sent to jail and finally forced to leave.

The woman is now worried about facing social stigma in the country and is currently clueless about how she will be received at home with the baby boy.

She said that she had been physically and mentally tortured ever since she reached Saudi Arabia back in November 2019.

At one point she became pregnant and was sent to a jail for the ‘crime’. She has given birth to the son when she was in jail.

Now she has been forced to return to the country after getting released.

“No one in my family knows about it. I can’t go back to the family with him. The people of the society will not take it well,” she lamented.

Members of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) on duty at the airport have handed her over to the BRAC Migration Programme.

She is currently staying at a BRAC Learning Center.

Shariful Islam Hasan, programme head, Migration at BRAC said that such incidents are unfortunate.

“The incident should be investigated. Her employer should be interrogated and if needed a DNA test should be conducted to find out the paternity of the child. There have been 12 such similar incidents in the recent past. We try our best to stand beside the victims, but the government should be proactive to ensure that such incidents don’t take place in the first place,” he said.

Earlier, in April this year, another Saudi Arabia-returnee woman abandoned her 8-month-old daughter at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

On 26 May, a woman returned home from the Middle Eastern country after losing her mental stability.

According to media reports, she also delivered a child inside a Saudi Arabia jail.

Besides, another female domestic worker was forced to return home with her four-month-old daughter from Oman in February this year.

She said she was handed over to Oman police when she became pregnant at one stage. Her child was then born while in the Oman deportation camp.

Earlier, on 16 December, 2020, another domestic worker named Guljahan Begum of Habiganj district was forced to return home from Oman with her three-month-old child.