Download or read book Born Poor written by Chandan Gopal Chari and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2023-08-09 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born Poor is a story based on true incidents which I witnessed with my very own eyes. It depicts how many women - from various South Asian, East Asian countries and Africa - travel to the Middle East full of dreams and hopes. They accept meager salaries, which however translates into a decent carning back home, thanks to currency exchange values. Most work as housemaids. Consequently, they sacrifice their whole life and also fall prey to their bosses. They are sexually abused, even raped, and full of guilt, they do not wish to live any more. Take the case of a young and beautiful Filipino girl who worked as a housemaid, and was threatened with execution in the United Arab Emirates at the age of 16. She had been sentenced by an Islamic court on the charge of stabbing her employer when he attempted to rape her. "I can't feel happy here because I am always watched, and every mistake is seized upon. Everything just seems chaotic," she said of life as an emigrant. Her name: Sarah Balabagan, who was 18 when the case drew wider attention, and was ordered to be deported after she paid her "victim's" family a fine of more than 25,000 British pounds! This is no fiction. This extract is taken from the Hello magazine. But I am happy for her; she has since done well for herself and become a pop-singer in the Philippines. Born Poor is a story that aims to make the reading public about the harsh reality of lives in our times. To be aware of the travails that our fellow human beings face, and how they need support - especially in the case of the poor who happen to be women. Those who work so hard, and travel long distances, not because chey want to live in 'Paradise, but because they aim to tend to their children, to look after their families, to send their earnings home in trving and touch situations. They deserve fair working conditions and a just wage. Likewise, men should not take advantage of this part of the world just because they happen to be poor and struggling to make ends meet while they desperately need to earn that extra money. We need to respect women, not only because they could well have been our sisters and our mothers, but also because a woman has a right to live as per her wishes and as a human being.