Living in India as a divorced single mother was very hard. My abusive first husband abandoned my daughter and I when she was very young and never provided any support. It is shameful to be divorced in my community, not just for me, but also for my daughter not to have a father. My family was always pressuring me to get married again.
I decided to register myself on an international marriage website to find a new husband. Mr. Singh*, who lived in the United States, sent me a message through the site that he wanted to marry me, and that he would give my daughter and I a very good life. I accepted his proposal.
After that, he called me every day and painted a picture of a golden future together. Whenever I couldn’t answer his calls, he got angry with me. But I didn’t take this as a bad sign. I just thought it showed how much he cared.
At first, he wanted me to come to the United States with my daughter right away, but my daughter was still finishing up school, so I told him I needed more time.
One day, he called and told me that his company had a program that selected a few children from all over the world for a cultural exchange program in the United States. He wanted to select my daughter so we sent him an application. When my daughter was accepted into the program, we were very proud. We told all our family and friends, and it was also in the local newspaper and on the radio. It meant even more to us to be recognized in our community because I was a single mother.
We got our visas and Mr. Singh* sent us plane tickets to travel to the U.S. for the summer. When we arrived, he picked us up at the airport and took us to his house. We asked if we could go to where the cultural exchange would take place so that we could meet the other children, but he said that they would come the following week.
That night in his home, he raped me for the first time.
He continued to sexually assault me every day. One night, my daughter had to sleep in his room as well and he raped me in front of my daughter. After that, I locked myself and my daughter in another room in the house to sleep.
Over the next few weeks, he forced us to work all the time, cleaning houses, doing yard work, and mowing lawns. We had to work all day long without food and water. He never paid us for any of this work.
By this point, I realized that we were very badly deceived, but we did not know what to do. We wanted to leave and go back, but he sold our return tickets to India.
One day, he told me he had never planned to marry me. He said I needed to have sex with other men, then he would give me money, and he will not give us trouble. He also said he wanted to involve my daughter. He said he knew men who would pay to have sex with her. At that point, I knew I had to escape to protect my daughter.
I begged him for days to take us to the Indian temple, thinking I could find someone who spoke my language to ask for help. When he finally took us, I told a woman at the temple that we needed help and shared my story. She told me to call 911 to reach the police and they would help me. I never knew about 911 before.
The next morning, I called the police. They came to the house and took me and my daughter to be interviewed and then sent us to a domestic violence shelter.
At the shelter, we finally found the help that we needed. I was able to get a restraining order against my trafficker, and they connected me with Tahirih Justice Center to support my immigration legal case. My daughter and I applied for T Visas, a protection for survivors of human trafficking, and we received them in 2020. Our Tahirih attorney is now helping us with applications for our green cards so we can stay in our new community in the United States.
Our Tahirih social services advocates helped us get an apartment, receive donated clothes and furniture, apply for benefits, and access mental health services through local community partners. I took English classes and enrolled in school to get a job in healthcare. My daughter Vani* has thrived in her American school academically and participating in sports.
After this incredibly traumatic experience, I am grateful for all the support we have found here in the United States to recover – therapy for myself and my daughter, a supportive church community, and new opportunities for myself and my daughter that give me hope for our future.
