From human trafficking victim to survivor

For several years, Rama was virtually invisible to the outside world.

In 2003, she was sold by her late husband’s family in southern India to work for a doctor in California. She was effectively housebound, working without pay for more than three years, with no real idea where she was.

“Every day I would hear, ‘You don’t have papers, we could do anything to you,'” she says.

She was eventually able to escape, working a series of other jobs below minimum wage in other doctors’ homes for a few more years.

In 2012, she got help from the South Asian Network, or SAN. That’s when she was able to get her T Visa, for victims of trafficking.

Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.