Jalandhar: Manpreet Kaur was one of the many young women who was trafficked to Iraq by a nexus of fake travel agents with roots in Punjab’s Kapurthala and Jalandhar districts.
Manpreet, like many other women, had refused to work as a domestic worker without a salary and resisted the advances of the house owner and agents who used to come to ‘buy’ women.
Thankfully, Manpreet along with 15 others managed to return home from Iraq, following the timely efforts of AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal and the Ministry of External Affairs. Manpreet and her friend Sandeep came back on November 20.
“While I was beaten, kicked in the stomach, and locked inside a washroom, a Nepali woman, who too was kept as a domestic worker, was dragged from the stairs, stripped naked and made to stand on the highway by the landlord. She was presented before the ‘agents,’ who had come to buy her,” she said.
In a hushed voice, Manpreet, who sustained internal injuries and was undergoing treatment at a relative’s house, said that nobody came forward to save that Nepali woman – neither the women in the house nor any passers-by. “We were terrified to the extent that even a slight glance from the men towards us would send shivers down our spine. Even now, when I recall those moments, I feel faint,” she said.
Their ordeal was not just confined to physical abuse; the Iraqi nationals allegedly used to harass them by not giving them anything to eat. “For days I would remain hungry. To top it all, they used to ask us to cut meat pieces, which was an extremely abhorrent task to do. They used to punish the women in weird ways,” she said while continuously thanking god for saving her life.
This year, around 60 women have been rescued by Sant Seechewal from the Gulf countries of Oman, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, bringing to the fore the thriving nexus of human traffickers and the failure of the police to set things right. Earlier, another AAP Rajya Sabha MP, Vikamjit Singh Sahney, had also rescued many Punjabi women stuck in the Gulf.
Usually, the women are promised jobs as domestic workers in hotels, malls and hospitals in the Gulf nations. However, the reality is that the moment they land in the Gulf, they are sold to some other agents, who either keep them as slaves or force them to join prostitution.
“I am a computer graduate but the travel agents trapped me too. The desire to overcome poverty and lead a better life pushed me towards this nexus,” Manpreet said.
Women share their ordeal
In a bid to avoid any immigration staff queries, the woman were first taken to Dubai. After making them wait for around eight hours at the Dubai airport, they were issued Iraq visas. The moment they landed in Iraq, their passports and mobile phones were allegedly snatched by the agents.
Notably, the travel agents also gave them job letters from a cleaning company in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, so that the women were convinced that they had a valid work visa. “We were employed in one ‘Machak Company’, Sulaymaniyah where women from different countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh and African countries were hired for menial jobs,” she said.
Another victim, Sandeep Kaur from Kapurthala district, said they realised why the travel agents did not send them directly to Iraq from India. “It was an hour-long flight from Dubai to Iraq, from where we were first taken to the Machak Company office, which gave us job letters. From there some men came to pick us up in cars and we were sent to different locations. Our nightmare started the moment we were employed as domestic workers,” Sandeep said.
Incidentally, the women travel agent through whom Sandeep reached Iraq was her relative. “Mandeep Kaur from Phagwara, Kapurthala district is a distant relative. She has been living in Iraq for two years. She used to call us from Iraq and share stories about her comfortable life. But once we landed in Iraq, she stopped responding,” Sandeep said.
Another woman, requesting anonymity, said they wanted to reach out to Mandeep for help but she just left them alone. “There were many woman who in the absence of timely assistance and lack of funds were trapped in the vicious circle of slavery and prostitution. We met some Nepali women who had been staying in Iraq for the last seven-eight years and their condition was miserable,” she said.
Fearing social stigma, the women decided not to lodge FIRs personally. Their cases were taken up by Sant Seechewal with senior police officials.
Women travel agents’ network on the rise in villages
The trend of women acting as touts or brokers is on the rise in Punjab, particularly in the NRI rich belt of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr districts. The agents are trapping women from financially weaker sections aged around 18 to 35 years in the villages and are allegedly responsible for pushing them into prostitution.
Mandeep Kaur, a resident of Phagwara town in Kapurthala district who is currently living in Iraq, was named by both Manpreet and Sandeep as the person who they were in contact with about moving to Iraq.
The woman also shared, “It is a gang of around 20 to 25 people led by Indians, Pakistanis and Iraqis in which Mandeep was from Phagwara, and three men were from Nawanshahr district, Kartarpur town in Jalandhar and Zira town in Ferozepur district respectively. While Mandeep lures woman with work visas in Iraq, her male counterparts decide where the women will actually go.”
The women said that initially, Mandeep lured them with a free work visa offer in Iraq but when finally their visa came, she demanded Rs 80,000. “We paid Rs 80,000 each plus another Rs 25,000,” they said.
Manpreet said that she carried an extra amount of Rs 6,000 for her personal expenses but Mandeep snatched that too. “The biggest shock came when the men in the house told us that they had bought us and we should pay them Rs 4 lakh, if we wanted to go home,” she said.
AAP MP raises issue in parliament
On December 6, Sant Seechewal raised this issue in parliament and demanded strict vigilance from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to track the nexus of fake travel agents and their touts, a majority of whom manage to flee because of tardy police investigations and out of court settlements.
In his speech, he said, “Women and girls are being taken to Gulf countries through travel agents and sold there. Through our efforts and with the support of the Indian Embassy, we have brought back to India around 60 women from Gulf countries who were trafficked there.”
“Travel agents are trapping very young women/girls from poor households and sending them on visitor visas to Gulf countries where they are being exploited. They are tricked into working in homes or in restaurants and falsely assured of salaries of Rs 35,000 to 40,000. Then, those women are made to sign an agreement written in Arabic language, which is being taken undue advantage of. It is a large group of people whose network is spread across different states of the country,” he said.
DGP Punjab orders probe, no headway yet
Taking note of these cases, Sant Seechewal met Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav in October and sought strict action against the culprits.
Talking to The Wire, Seechewal said that the DGP had assured him that he would appoint a committee headed by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Jalandhar Range as nodal officer and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jalandhar and Kapurthala as members to investigate the case.
Two months after the constitution of the DIG-level committee, though, there does not appear to have been much movement. The Wire reached out to DIG Jalandhar Range S. Bhoopathi with a questionnaire but failed to get an response. The DIG had initially responded to text messages but later stopped doing so.
However, when contacted SSP Kapurthala Vatsala Gupta said, “The investigation is at a preliminary stage and as it is a sensitive case, we cannot reveal much. But there is no denying that the trend of women acting as travel agents or brokers as part of a big human trafficking racket is on the rise in Punjab. A major fault also lies on the part of people who apply for such visas, as despite widespread awareness campaigns, people do not tend to verify the details of the travel agents and then get stuck.”
Earlier, the Rajya Sabha MP said that he also handed over a list of some travel agents to expedite the investigation. “We are waiting for a police probe,” he added.
NRI affairs minister clueless
The Punjab NRI affairs minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal also failed to give an elaborate reply to most of the queries posed by The Wire. The minister said that he was aware of the magnitude of the problem and was working to break the nexus of fraud travel agents.
Apart from expressing deep concern over the flourishing fake travel agents’ nexus in the NRI rich belt of Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur districts, the minister said, “I am aware how women travel agents walk around the villages and trap women from financially weak backgrounds with big dreams of work visa, job and good salary. We are tracking these cases and will make some headway soon.”
Dhaliwal also said that he had brought this matter to the notice of the Ministry of Home Affairs. “As the laws to track and punish human trafficking were the central government’s domain, we have raised this issue with the MHA too,” he added.
Names changed to protect victims’ anonymity.
