So I asked my husband to quit his job to stay home with the kids, and I traveled to the U.S. on a G-5 diplomatic visa. I brought with me a clean cloth diaper for each of my kids, to remind me of them. My new employers picked me up at the airport and drove me to their home, in a building with a doorman on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I later told the rest of my story in an affidavit to the Department of Homeland Security—after learning I had become a victim of human trafficking.

In the beginning, things were okay. I had my own small room, though it was unfurnished aside from a bed. My employers would even take me out to dinner with them. But after three months, the wife started yelling at me all the time, for things like folding the laundry wrong. I couldn’t fully understand English, and said, “Sorry madam, I can’t understand.” That only made her angrier.

I was soon working 14-to-18-hour days, seven days per week. I cleaned and vacuumed their three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment, washed and ironed their clothes, cooked breakfast and dinner, and cared for their daughter. I had to do the laundry in the bathtub, because they said the washing machine would ruin their clothes. When the daughter had an accident in her bed, I had to wash the comforter in the middle of the night. When family friends stayed the night, I had to serve them and wash their clothes too.

The food was very limited, as I wrote in the affidavit. The family would portion out how much food I should cook. I was only allowed to eat the leftovers—if there were any—after dinner. If I took more food than was allowed, the wife would say, “That’s too much.” I felt jittery all the time, knowing they were watching how much I ate. My typical meal consisted of a tall glass of water, a slice of bread, and half of a banana or plain rice late at night.

Once, I was so hungry in the middle of the night and remembered that there was still some rice in the rice cooker. I snuck into the kitchen, scooped a big spoonful of rice into a paper towel, and took it back to my room. The rice stuck to the paper towel, but I peeled off every grain. I was so hungry, I almost ate the paper towel.

Their daughter required special care and education. Caregivers for people with her condition need to have extra training, because some of them can feel easily threatened or frustrated, and they act out. I didn’t know any of this. The daughter would punch me in my back and in my ear. I would panic; I had no idea how to handle this. I would ask her to stop, and she would lie down crying on the floor. Then the wife would yell at me, or just stand there and watch the situation unravel.

I was so isolated. My employers told me not to have friends, especially other Filipinos. They warned me not to tell anyone how much I was being paid. They would say that my sister could get in trouble, or that I could get deported. They would watch me if I talked to anyone else. It scared me. For two years, I hardly ever left home unaccompanied, except on very brief errands to the grocery store across the street.