Over 4,000 miles away from their Sierra Leone homes, women seeking work, money, or higher education are laboring in grueling and unsafe conditions—with no one and no where to turn but the streets of Oman. After years of abuse and neglect, 50 of those Sierra Leonean women returned home thanks to a generous donation from the doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation in partnership with Engage Now Africa (ENA-End Modern Slavery). The funding helped purchase plane tickets, process money orders, obtain COVID-19 travel documents and tests, connect the women to staff support, resources, case management, and handle other indirect costs on the ground in Sierra Leone.

Tenneh, Fatu, and Haja all hail from Sierra Leone and share this exploitative experience that is all too common throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In search of better opportunities and help for their families, Tenneh, Fatu, and Haja found themselves trapped in Oman after being lured there under the false promise of a good job and steady income. They endured modern slavery in the form of sexual harassment, sleeping on floormats in their abusive employers’ homes, and laboring over 15 hours a day without pay or food. However, the women exercised strength and tenacity as they navigated their way back home, even amidst Omani laws that deem it a crime for a domestic worker to leave their employer. 

Sierra Leone is proven to be a hotspot for human trafficking and multidimensional poverty. With doTERRA’s help, women like Tenneh, Fatu, and Haja have returned home safely, and there remain hundreds more whom doTERRA is working towards aiding in their journeys back to their families.

Find out how you can help other victims of human trafficking and learn more about doTERRA’s Hope to Belong initiative by visiting https://doterrahealinghands.org/hope.