When tragedy strikes, empathy is the only outlet that remains. One case from Rahim Yar Khan has shaken the very perception of domestic help in Pakistan. While affording a maid is a sense of luxury in the West, in Pakistan, domestic help is one of the cheapest laborers available.
A female domestic worker escaped the hell which was her employer’s house and reached out to the police. The girl N* (who shall not be named) narrated her heartwrenching story, of the abuse she had been facing at the hands of her employers.
Allegedly, two sisters who employed the maid, made her go through severe torture and on top, tried to force her into prostitution. An FIR under No 347/20 was filed in the Abbasi Town police station in Rahim Yar Khan.
The maid had been living with the sisters for the last two years. She was kept in confinement, not allowed to go out or visit her relatives, even close family. She was trapped in the hell-house, where she was subjected to many different ways of torture.
The sisters would their maid to work as a prostitute, selling her to different men who would come to the house. When the maid disobeyed them, she was subjected to physical abuse. On May 22, the same routine was following, when the sisters invited 4 men to their house.
The men attempted to force themselves on the maid N* when she resisted, she was subjected to brutal physical pain. Moreover, the sisters also shaved her head bald because of her defiance.
This wasn’t the only case. For two years, the maid remained unpaid, while the sisters forced her to work as a prostitute. On Saturday, the girl managed to escape her confinement and went straight to the police.
Since then, police have taken action and have arrested 7 people from the racquet, including the two sisters. The arrested women since then have been sent to jail via judicial remand.
This is not the first case of domestic torture in Pakistan. Recently, an 8-year-old little girl who worked as a maid was beaten to death by her employer.
