Malawian woman who was lured to Oman with an offer of work reveals how she was enslaved and raped while getting as little as two hours’ sleep a night

A Malawian woman lured to Oman with the offer of work was enslaved and raped while getting only two hours of sleep a night.

Georgina, from Lilongwe, Malawi, broke down in tears as she relived the abuse she experienced in the new BBC Africa Eye documentary called Trapped in Oman.

The 32-year-old thought she had been recruited to work as a driver in Dubai – and in the hope of a better life, she jumped at the opportunity.

She had been running a small business in Lilongwe and was making ends meet when she was approached by an agent who said she could make more money in the Middle East.

It wasn’t until the plane landed in Muscat, the capital of Oman, that she realized she had been tricked and then trapped by a family who made her work grueling hours seven days a week.

“When I arrived, I was greeted by a stranger, then I was handed over to another person who introduced himself as my boss,” she said.

‘I wasn’t allowed to rest. I woke up at 3am and went to bed at 1am. I reached a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore.’

Georgina hadn’t been there long when her boss started forcing her to have sex with him, threatening to shoot her if she said anything.

She added: ‘It wasn’t just him, he brought friends and they paid him afterwards. He threatened me and said he would shoot me if I screamed.’

She struggled to speak as she described how she was forced to have anal sex: ‘I was seriously injured. I became so desperate.’

After several weeks, Georgina became desperate and in a post on Facebook she begged for someone to help her.

Thousands of miles away, in the US state of New Hampshire, 38-year-old Malawian social media activist Pililani Mombe Nyoni saw her post and began investigating it.

She reached out and had the Facebook post deleted for Georgina’s safety and provided her own WhatsApp number, which began circulating in Oman. She quickly realized it was a broader problem.

‘Georgina was the first victim. Then it was one girl, two girls, three girls,” she told the BBC.

“Then I said, ‘I’m going to form a (WhatsApp) group because this looks like human trafficking.”

More than fifty Malawian women working in Oman eventually joined the group.

Soon the WhatsApp was full of voice notes and videos, some too harrowing to watch, detailing the horrific conditions the women lived in.

Many had their passports taken away as soon as they arrived, preventing them from leaving.

Some told how they had locked themselves in toilets to secretly send their pleading messages.

“I feel like I’m in prison… we can never escape,” said one. “My life is really in danger,” said another.

Ms Nyoni began speaking to human trafficking charities in Malawi and was introduced to Ekaterina Porras Sivolobova, founder of Do Bold, based in Greece.

Do Bold works with migrant workers in the Gulf States, identifying victims of human trafficking or forced labor, and then negotiating their release with their employers.

‘The employers pay an agent to provide domestic workers. One of the most common challenges we face is when the employer or agent says, ‘I want my money back so she can go home,'” Ms Sivolobova told the BBC.

‘The laws in force (in Oman) prohibit a domestic worker from leaving the employer. She can’t change jobs and she can’t leave the country – no matter how you’re treated.’

This is known in the Middle East as the ‘kafala’ labor system, which binds workers to their employers for the duration of their contracts.

Oman’s National Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons said the relationship between the employer and the domestic worker was contractual – and that unresolved disputes could be taken to court within a week.

It added that an employer “should not impose any form of forced labor on the employee” and that he should not keep an employee’s “passport and private documents without his written consent.”

After three months in Muscat, and with the help of Ms Nyoni and someone in Oman, Georgina returned to Malawi in June 2021.

“After I helped Georgina, I felt so angry, I felt so angry,” Ms Nyoni said.

Georgina’s case allowed her to raise the alarm in Malawi, and pressure began to mount on the government to intervene.

Malawian charity Center for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) launched a rescue campaign in Oman and called on authorities to bring the women home.

Blessings was another woman in Ms Nyoni’s WhatsApp group. The 39-year-old had traveled to Muscat in December 2022, leaving her four children with her sister Stevelia in Lilongwe.

She was seriously burned in the kitchen of the house where she worked, but her employer did not allow her to return to Malawi.

She said: ‘The severity of the burns, believe me, I saw my sister lose her own life. I remember my sister saying, “Sister, I came here because I needed a better life, but if I die, please take care of my children.” That hurt me.’

Stevelia started lobbying to bring her sister home. Initially, the officer angrily told the family that Blessings was dead, but this was untrue and she eventually returned last October, with the help of the Malawian government.

Blessings said, “I never thought there would come a time when I would see my family, my children, again. I had no idea there were people on this earth who treated others like slaves.”

The Malawian government, which also worked with Do Bold, said it spent more than $160,000 (£125,000) to bring 54 women back from Oman.

But another woman, 23-year-old Aida Chiwalo, returned home in a coffin. No autopsy or investigation was conducted in Oman after her death.

Oman authorities said the Ministry of Labor had received no complaints from domestic workers of Malawian nationality in 2022 and only one complaint had been resolved in 2023.

“The majority of these women were released because money was paid to the employer, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000,” Ms. Sivolobova said.

‘So basically their freedom had to be bought. And that’s what bothers me. How can you buy someone else’s freedom?’

A spokesperson for the Malawi government told the BBC that it was developing rules “to ensure safe, orderly and regular migration that benefits the migrants, their families and the country as a whole.”

But Ms Nyoni, whose WhatsApp group is now more of a support forum for the returnees, says the issue of trafficked domestic workers to Oman highlights a larger problem in Malawi: that of poverty and unemployment.

“If the young girls were given the opportunity to find a job in Malawi, they would not fall into the trap. We need to fix the nation so that these young people will never be trapped like this again.”

For Georgina, the trauma was difficult to leave behind. She finds it soothing to go down and look out over Lake Malawi, one of the largest in Africa.

‘When I look at the waves, it reminds me that nothing in life lasts forever. One day this will all be history,” she said.

‘I find peace and encourage myself that I will return to how I was: the old Georgina, who was independent.’

Georgina testified against the officers who took her to Oman, but after two years there have been no convictions.

It is estimated that there are approximately two million female domestic workers in the Arab Gulf States.

A survey of 400 women in Oman by the migrant organization Do Bold, published in the US State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, found that almost all were victims of human trafficking.

Nearly a third said they had been sexually abused, while half reported physical abuse and discrimination.

You can watch the full BBC Africa Eye documentary Trapped in Oman on the BBC Africa YouTube channel.