A 28-year-old woman from Tanahun had arrived in Israel on January 1 to work as a caregiver. However, only after working for two months did she realize that she was not in Israel but in Palestine. The house where she was working is in Ramallah, a Palestinian-controlled area of ​​the West Bank. Ramallah is the capital of Palestine.

One part of the West Bank is controlled by Israel and the other by the Palestinian government. The Nepalese government does not have any official information about the presence of Nepali workers in the West Bank. However, it has been found that human traffickers have taken Nepali women to work in Palestinian homes. 'We were a team of 32 people all the way to Oman. We arrived in Israel from Kathmandu via Qatar-Oman-Dubai,” said the young woman, who is in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank. “From Oman to Palestine, we used to send them alone.”

After the visit visas became more stringent, the Immigration Department had taken a relaxed policy as per the ministerial decision of 13 Kartik. According to which, those going abroad on a visit visa need to have a passport with a validity of at least 6 months, a visa from the relevant country or a visa on arrival if they are from a country where a visa is available, and if they have an air ticket, they must declare that they are responsible for the purpose of the visit and the consequences created by the visit.

It has been revealed that smugglers have been taking advantage of this relaxed arrangement in the visit visas to take Nepali women to Palestine via various countries.  “Initially, they were taken to Oman. Oman had a 10-day visa. I stayed in Oman for two days. There is definitely a place to keep people like us there. "There are so many Nepalis in Oman," she said, "I came to Israel from Oman via Dubai." 

She lived in Dumre, Tanahun. Her friend arranged to take her there from Tanahun. "I was lured by my friend from Tanahun, she also works at home in Palestine. She keeps giving him $400 for one girl," she said, "My friend keeps attracting girls who are not good at it. She had promised that she would work at Sahuni's house, but that she would change my job. I had said that I could never work at home." The visa and ticket arrived within three days of sending the passport. The visa was for Oman, not Israel. It was only a ticket to Israel. She had gone from Oman to Israel airport alone. And how was she allowed to fly alone without a visa? "I don't know if the embassy will ask me the same question," she said, "There were no papers, only a ticket." The visa was from Oman. There was no visa from any other country.’ 

She did not know the person who gave her the ticket in Nepal. ‘I don’t know the exact name. I have saved the ticket as my brother. That brother is controlled by someone living in Dubai. He and the one working in Oman are controlled from Jordan,’ she said, ‘I don’t know where I came from or where I got stuck. I was taken directly to the West Bank by land from the Israeli airport.

A person arrived at the airport at midnight to pick me up. ‘I woke up in the morning and went back and forth. I kept thinking that I was in Israel. Later, I was in Palestine. When I remember, my life is a mess,’ she said, ‘It’s like it’s falling apart. There is a nurse here. She takes care of it.’ She had learned that she could get attractive salaries and facilities as a caregiver in Israel. You can only travel between Nepal and Israel through the government mechanism.

It has been reported that Nepali female workers in Palestine have requested for rescue, and we are preparing to discuss with Israeli officials how to rescue them from there.- Om Bhandari, Nepali Ambassador to Israel Out of the 2,000 caregivers selected for the second time, 1,700 have already left. She had also undergone three-month training from CTEVT. She had also gone to the hospital and practiced caregiver-related activities. Now that the country is different, she is starting to panic. She does not have a passport with her. When she says she will go back, the agent is replying that she cannot send her. ‘It will not cost anything to the friend. Then the main agent is from Jordan. I am telling him how much it costs, but I will go to Nepal at my own expense. He just says it will be difficult to send her back,’ she said, ‘Right now, he does not even check the messages.’

The family she works for is very wealthy. There are four children in the family. Two are young. Two are grown up. There are four drivers. There are six security personnel. They have to work more than 12 hours a day. They have to do everything from taking care of the children to mopping, washing the dishes, and washing the car. They don't have to cook. 'I don't know how to cook Arabic. Ma'am cooks the food,' she said. 'They trust me. They leave the house on my own.' She said that there is not much of a problem with the language.

They also speak broken English. 'What's better for me? I only passed my SLC,' she said. She does not have a passport with her. 'I fall down in a hurry. It happened once before I came here. After I got married in Nepal, I couldn't come back. After coming here, it happened again yesterday. It happened again today,' she said. 'No matter how sick I am, I have to work.'

The employer is not in favor of sending her back immediately. The employer says that they signed a four-year contract with an agent. However, she has not been given such a written contract. A Nepali domestic worker who was in regular contact with her has fled to Nepal. ‘We were connected in a group with friends. Everyone kept talking about not just four years, but life,’ she said. ‘If we couldn’t work here, the agent would take us to Jordan or Oman.

This means that the sister will be sent to Oman as soon as possible. Her passport was with her. She fled Nepal in transit while going to Oman.’  There are three crossings on the main land route from northern Jordan to Israel and Palestine. There are the King Hussein Bridge (Allenby Bridge), Sheikh Hussein Bridge and Wadi Arabi Crossing.

Only the King Hussein Bridge is open for Palestinians. It connects Hebron, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. This crossing is open from Sunday to Thursday from 8:30 am to 6 pm, Friday from 8:30 am to 4 pm and closed on Saturdays. It has been revealed that Nepali domestic workers are being trafficked through this route. They are being paid $400 while working in this house. They have been given a separate room to stay. They have to work from 7:30 am to 12 pm. ‘You can run away from this house. But where can you go? I don’t have my passport with me,’ she said. ‘This is a village. The market is near here. They took me away twice.’ She said that it was very difficult to escape and enter Jordan or Israel. ‘There is no chance of rescue with the help of a driver, how scared they are,’ she said. ‘They don’t understand English. They talk incoherently. They just say why they came.’

She had requested her employer to send her. ‘We don’t know what you said to others. When you come to our house, you have to do what we say. If you don’t, they say you have to return the $15,000 they promised to bring you,’ she said about her employer, ‘Where can you get that much money? I just kept quiet.’  She said she was sending $400 to Nepal via minigram. ‘There is a regular conversation at home.

My parents are still worried. As they keep saying, ‘I have sunk 170,000 rupees to work in Kuwait. I came to another country to collect it. I have to get stuck here.’ She said that she could not send her ‘live location’.