As migrants slave in Gulf

In those harrowing months, when she worked as a domestic help for a 70-year-old woman, Kasthuri says she was fed one roti a day, worked more than 15 hours, never allowed to speak to her family on the phone, and paid a month's wages only for it to be taken right back. When she complained to the employer about harassment, they had a fight. Kasthuri, 55, says the "Ma'am" made a throat-slitting action and locked all the doors, which scared her. She threw a sari out of a second floor window and tried to climb out. "I heard a chak! noise, my arm was cut and I fell and lost consciousness," she says. When she came to at a hospital, she found her right arm was amputated, her knee and back broken and in need of extensive surgery. As her sister and son in India drew the Indian Embassy's attention to Kasthuri's condition, the ministry of overseas Indian affairs and the Tamil Nadu government worked to bring her back home.