Two women freed from slavery, make peace with "slave-drivers"

Two women, who spent six months in slavery, reconciled with the family of exploiters in the West Kazakhstan Oblast, writes Uralskaya Nedelya.

The story is about Gulsum Khamitova, 51, and her daughter Rassel, 26, whom, in May 2012, a woman named Nursulu offered to earn some money.

"Then we were living in the village of Bogdanovka. We had no job and she told us she would pay us 20,000 tenge a month if we look after cattle and help maintain her farm, to what we agreed. Shortly, Nursulu came to Bogdanovka with her husband Namash Darguzhiyev and took us to Ankatinski Razyezd in the Burlinki District."

To begin with, everything was going as thought to be - the women received proper food and did all the dirty job: clean animal droppings, saw wood, carry water in buckets and cut grass.

In one word, they looked after cattle, which Namash, the farmer, had plenty - nearly 150 cows and camels and a dozen of horses. After a month the women asked their boss to pay them and let go home.

However, the farm owners began to seek quarrel with the ladies at every point and even applied physical force: should they dislike how the two saw wood they would hit them with hand, later with a spade and even an earthfork, the ex-slavers told.

Half a year passed and police came to the farm. Gulsum says she has no idea who told them about two people being held in bondage at the place.  

"A criminal proceeding was launched into the case, classified as illegal deprivation of freedom, says Magauia Kurmashev, investigation officer with the provincial police. - But the sides came to a settlement that the Darguzhiyevs would amicably pay a compensation to the victims."