Meanwhile, Indians working there are raising funds to pay for the women's airfare to India. "The women have been repatriated at the cost of prominent Indians, Indian associations and the welfare fund of the Indian Embassy," said an Indian journalist working in Kuwait. According to social workers in India and Kuwait, Indian women sent to work as maids in homes of affluent Arabs are often subjected to cruelty and sexual exploitation. The strict control on the freedom of expression in these countries ensures that the names of the employer and the recruitment agency which brought in the victims are rarely brought tolight.

Activists who take up the cause of the Indian labour force in Kuwait say recruitment agents think up ingenious ways to pay less than the promised emoluments to people they hire. "Though the advertisements promise free recruitment, the agents cut the cost of airfare and their commission from the workers' salaries," says Roland Martins, whose non-governmental organisation, Jagrut Goenkaranche Fauj, takes up the cause of these people. Martins has now mooted the idea of briefing the women on their options if they are subjected to harassment by their employers.

The Goa State Commission for Women have also decided to take up the cause of maids stranded in the West Asian countries though it is hamstrung by lack of infrastructure. "We do take up the cases of the such women with the local Indian mission," says Pramod Salgaocar, chairperson of the commission.

She, however, felt that there is need for an instutionalised mechanism to handle such cases as when they arise. Incidentally, the commissionintervened in a dispute between a maid from Goa and her Omani employer last year and helped bring the woman back home.

Thanks to pressure from the Indian community in Kuwait ten years ago, the Central Government was forced to fund a safe-house for women who fled their employers. Though the safe house consisting of just two flats provides the women a roof over their heads, they still depend on charity from fellow Indians.