The 32-year-old from from Rupandehi, who worked in the Gulf as a housemaid, snuck back into the country because she had been repeatedly raped by her employers, had become pregnant as a result, and was returning with a baby in tow. Sarita, a married woman with four kids, had left for the Gulf almost four years ago because her family was not well-off and her husband was unemployed—and she had taken it upon herself to make some money abroad.

When she learned that women could easily find work as housemaids in Saudi Arabia, she had decided that that’s where she would go. She had no idea about how to go about the process, so like other women in her village, she had asked a local agent for help. She paid him Rs 25,000 and he dispatched her, via India, to Saudi Arabia. Essentially, she left for the Gulf without the Nepali government’s approval.

When she got to Daman, she was initially given a two-year contract and she started working for a large family in the city. When her two years were up, she wanted to return to Nepal, but her employer locked her in the house and from then on made her work without pay. He also started coming to her room and abusing her sexually from then on. Sarita found out that she was pregnant three months after the abuse started. When she told her employer about her pregnancy, he promptly sent her to the police station, from where she was sent to jail. The police blamed her for getting pregnant—they told her that migrant labourers like her were not allowed to bear children in the country—and she spent 19 months in jail, where she gave birth to a daughter. Later, the authorities got in touch with the Nepali embassy, who arranged for her passage back home last November.

Upon her arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport, she sat around in a daze near the baggage carousel, until a social worker from Pourakhi emergency shelter—which takes care of returnees like her—approached her and brought her to the shelter.

“She hasn’t contacted her family, although she wants to, because Sarita is afraid her husband and family will not accept her,” says Muna Gautam, a counsellor at the shelter. “We are only an emergency shelter and we couldn’t house her long-term, so we referred her to SAATHI [a shelter for women victims of domestic violence], where she currently lives.”

The government hasn not stepped in to help. Officials say they would like to, but because Sarita was an undocumented worker abroad, they can’t do much for her.

But, says Tika Prasad Bhandari, the director of Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB), even for documented women migrant workers who return home pregnant or with a child conceived through abuse, there is no reintegration programme that they can avail of.

And even the abused housemaids, who return home with babies and are somehow re-integrated into society, find that life back home is exceedingly difficult. Four years ago, Lali (name changed) returned to Nepal from Beirut, Lebanon, in circumstances similar to Sarita’s. She was unmarried when she had left for the Middle East, and when she returned, her parents were willing to take her back. But when she went back with her baby to her village in Syangja, her fellow villagers made life difficult for her, until she could not take the constant barbs and hurtful comments anymore. Three months later, she ran away from her village and came to Kathmandu, where she is now working in a carpet factory. Today, without government support and without a network of people to support her, she and her baby struggle to get by.

According to Manju Gurung, chairperson of Pourakhi Nepal, the organisation has already taken care of 15 women like Sarita since 2011. Ten of the women returned with babies and five of them gave birth to their babies in Nepal.  Of the 15 babies, eight of them have stayed with their mothers while the seven others have been given up for adoption.

“There should be government provisions to create a halfway home for such women,” says Gurung. “The women would be able to stay over at night in the home, work during the day and also get counselling to deal with their trauma. And perhaps with such a support structure in place, they would be able to pick up the pieces and try to make a life for themselves again.”

The FEPB’s Bhandari says that because of the recent cases they have come across, the government has now decided to conduct a study to come up with provisions that will help returnees like Sarita. “We do want to help the women, but because we do not have specific programmes for them, we can’t do much right now.”