Trafficked Nepali, Bangladeshi women trapped in Syria

Nepali villager Sunita Magar thought she was heading to a safe factory job in Kuwait, but only when she landed in Damascus did she realise "something had gone very wrong".
Frequently beaten with a baton and given only one meal a day, Magar says she spent 13 months working as a maid for a Syrian household and pleading to be allowed to go home.
"I was just in shock, I couldn't stop crying," the single mother-of-two said.
Magar is among scores of poor Nepali and Bangladeshi women who travelled to the Middle East on the promise of a good job, only to be trafficked into Syria, wracked by five years of civil war.

Nepal's top diplomat in the region said nationals from the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries, which, like Nepal and Bangladesh, have large migrant labour populations, stopped working in Syria because of the dangers involved.
"Since then traffickers have been targeting Nepalis," said Kaushal Kishor Ray, head of Nepal's diplomatic mission based in Cairo.

"The numbers have gone up hugely in recent years, we estimate there must be around 500 Nepali women in Syria," Ray said.
In nearby Bangladesh, Shahinoor Begum lies in a Dhaka hospital bed recovering from her seven-month ordeal after being trafficked into Syria as a sex slave.

"I was sold to a Syrian man who tortured and raped me every day, sometimes along with his friends," Begum, also a single mother-of-two, said.
Criminal networks target nationals from Nepal and Bangladesh in part because their governments have little diplomatic influence in the region and no embassy in Syria.
A Nepal government ban on migrant workers travelling to Syria has failed to stop the traffickers, an International Labour Organization (ILO) official said.
"Nepal's government thinks a ban is the easiest solution, it basically allows them to wipe their hands of the issue," said Bharati Pokharel, ILO national project coordinator in Kathmandu.

"India has much more diplomatic clout than Nepal or Bangladesh and traffickers are aware of this. They know Nepal is weak and that they will face no legal action for their activities," Pokharel told AFP.
Illiterate, trusting and desperate to dig herself out of poverty, Magar didn't hesitate when a labour broker approached her with a promise of a well-paid job in Kuwait. The 23-year-old says she didn't realise she had been duped until the plane landed in Damascus.