Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful for the collaboration with Mr Ibrahim V. Kondoh, Former Minister Plenipotentiary and Head of Chancery from the Sierra Leone Embassy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who has played a key role in the repatriation of Sierra Leonean victims of human trafficking and forced labour from Oman throughout his appointment and continuing to do so. A special thank you to Migrant-Rights.Org for the significant support provided from the beginning and throughout the project. 

We would also like to thank everyone that played a key role in supporting the Sierra Leonean women, us, and the project: the dedicated staff of our travel agency, who cooperated and supported us throughout the period of this project, including weekends and outside working hours; our two teams of volunteers on the ground in Muscat who have aided in the repatriation process; the Sierra Leonean volunteers who helped us with the multiple requests that we could not have responded to without them; to the Omani community that helped us clarify answers to questions about employment practices; the hospital that helped process pre-travel PCR tests for the women we supported; our nurse who has helped the community with health questions and advice; our Arabic translator who helped us translate the vast number of documents and negotiations with employers; the Rain Collective for co-organising a three-month crowdfunding campaign to support this group of women; the Domestic Workers Advocacy Network’s Lucy Turay for organising women returning from Oman and supporting them with economic opportunities; and to World Hope International-Sierra Leone for partnering with us for reintegration referrals and supporting these women in Sierra Leone. Our further gratitude to the many individual donors and collaborating organisations and businesses, including Leap Loves Green, who supported the repatriation of these women. 

A very special thank you to everyone that has worked to make this report happen. This includes James Lynch of the human rights research and advocacy organisation FairSquare Projects and Migrant-Rights.Org, who reviewed parts of this report, as well as the data analysts, editors, and Arabic translators. Also, we would like to extend our gratitude to the donor that supported the design of this report and the possibility of including artwork from a Sierra Leonean woman artist.

And last but not least, to all the team at Do Bold who has made the project “Freedom for Our Sisters” possible and the women’s plight visible through this report, thank you.