I was the only cleaner for a whole 5-storey building in Saudi Arabia - Ghanaian maid recounts ordeal
- A rescued Ghanaian maid has recounted how she had to endure all sorts of treatment in Saudi Arabia
- According to her, financial difficulties forced her to leave the shores of Ghana for greener pastures
- However, her hope was not to be as she was thrown into the hands of very strict bosses who maltreated her
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A Ghanaian lady known as Yaa Baby Oparebea Asare, has opened up about the treatment meted out to her in Saudi Arabia where she went to work as a house help.
Yaa travelled to work as a house help in Saudi Arabia and some other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), recounted how she was made to overwork.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, and monitored by YEN.com.gh, Yaa indicated that she lived in a deplorable condition during her stay in Saudi Arabia.
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According to her, the ordeal started as a result of some financial difficulties and other family problems that life threw at her.
In a bid to better her financial fortunes, Yaa decided to leave the country to seek greener pastures and was introduced to a travel agent in Madina.
Yaa told show host Kojo Yankson that prior to her leaving the country, her phone was taken from her with the promise of receiving a better one when she arrives in Saudi Arabia.
She went on to recount that when they arrived at the airport in Saudi Arabia, she met some other ladies who had also come to better their fortunes.
They were picked up by a corresponding agent in Saudi Arabia who loaded them into a blacked-out van and drove them to the house of their respective agents.
“From the airport, they came with a van and packed us like sardines. We were more than twenty in a small van. When they are taking you to the agent’s house, you are not supposed to look outside, they have curtains in the van. If you make an attempt to open it, you’ll receive a slap,” she said.
The employers of the ladies then came to get them from the agent’s house and took them to their houses to work.
Yaa, however, indicated that she was assigned to a 5-storey building where she was to work alone cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the apartments in that building.
“The building was a 5-storey building and you are going to work alone. Immediately you enter the room, they will tell you to rest and after an hour or two, they will call you to get to work. They will give you food and that will be all you’ll have for the rest of the day. Sometimes, you won’t get the food at all,” Yaa recounted
While there, she met another Ghanaian girl who informed her about the dangers of working in Saudi Arabia as a maid.
“I met a Ghanaian girl at a family event we went to one day and she told me I was better off dead. She told me to throw away any food they gave me to eat because it would be drugged to make me go mad and also forget about my family,”.
She recounted how she had to insist on being given a phone, but her ‘Madam’ told her she had to wait for 3 years before she could get one.
Eventually, she was given a small feature phone with limited airtime. She tried to call her family back home as she had been unable to contact anyone a month after she had arrived in Saudi Arabia.
As her airtime was limited and calling was expensive, she resorted to sending texts to contacts she knew back home for help.
At a point in time, Miss Oparebea Asare recounted how she was instructed to wash the 5-storey building as part of her duties in the house after being falsely accused by her boss’ sister-in-law.
Throughout her stay there, she was maltreated, denied sufficient rest and food, and had no other connection to the outside world save her small phone with limited airtime.
It was not until recently that she was rescued and managed to find her way back into Ghana.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
