THE woman wearing a green dress with matching scarf sat pensively under the Kandara Bridge in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The air under this 2,500-meter-long flyover is hot and dusty. However Arum, the woman, did not budge.

For the past several days, every morning at 6, Arum, 35, would go there and leave only after dusk. She would then look for lodging at the work place of acquaintances from her hometown.

This mother of two ran from her employer who