Gulf dreams turn sour for Konaseema women Premium

Explore the struggles of Konaseema women lured by Gulf job promises, facing exploitation and seeking safe repatriation.

With dreams of building a better life for themselves and their families, Kamala (32) boarded a sleeper-class private bus on May 12, 2025, along with her younger sister Raji (30), from Amalapuram—the administrative headquarters of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district—bound for Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad.

Along with the sisters were several other women on board the bus, all sharing the same destination: Muscat. The group arrived at Muscat International Airport (MCT) in Oman the following evening via Mumbai.

Recalling the initial excitement of taking the first step towards her dream, Kamala said that their Muscat-based agent, who was also a native of Konaseema, had sent a driver to pick them up from the airport. The driver identified the sisters using their photographs, collected their passports immediately after the introduction, and then dropped them off at the agent’s office. For the next fortnight, the sisters, along with other young women, were trained by the agent to work as “housemaids.”

“Like us, there was another group of 13 young women, mostly from our area, who were brought by our agent with the promise of the same work— as housemaids,” said Kamala, a mother of two boys aged 7 and 5.

Kamala, who had worked as a nurse in a private hospital, quit her job, while Raji, an intermediate dropout, gave up tailoring for their shared dream—to fly to the Gulf, earn money, and return to build their own house in their village. Kamala and Raji, also a mother of two children, live in separate rented houses with their families in the same village on the outskirts of Amalapura, part of Konaseema district—a land of coconuts in Andhra Pradesh, where the river Godavari meets the Bay of Bengal.

The sisters said that an opportunity came their way after their husbands supported their decision and helped them find agents recruiting women for jobs in the Gulf.