In Contempt of Fate

The slave narrative of Beatrice Fernando

She grabbed the brush out of my hand and struck my face with it. It took me by surprise and for a second I thought it was a dream, until I felt a stinging pain as the bristles dug into my flesh.

"Why are you hitting me?" I asked, covering my eyes from her attacks.

She kept hitting me again and again, aiming for my eyes. Finally the brush broke in her hand and she punched me in the nose.

"I will kill you if I ever catch you crying in this house. Now wash up and start your work in the living room. Do not go to the family room until the children are gone." She departed just the way she came in, without a sound.

Surviving the modern-day slave trade

When Beatrice Fernando was 23 years old, she contracted with an agency to work in Lebanon as a housemaid, promised decent wages to provide for her son and family in Sri Lanka. Upon arriving in Lebanon, Beatrice was sold to a wealthy Beirut woman who beat, starved, and verbally abused her. After months of back-breaking labor and endless torture, Beatrice escaped by the only means available - she jumped off the fourth story balcony of her ritzy apartment.

Twenty five years later, Fernando lives in the United States and speaks out about her nightmarish enslavement and how she survived. After publishing her autobiography, In Contempt of Fate, Fernando has appeared on numerous television and radio programs about modern-day slavery, spoken at universities and religious institutions, and testified to the United Sates House of Representatives on March 9, 2005.