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45-year old woman from Karawang, West Java, never thought that applying to return to work in the Middle East would lead her to become a victim of human trafficking.

A divorce from her husband had forced the woman, who requested to be referred to only as “U,” to apply for another job in Doha, in late 2015. This time, however, the situation was different as the Indonesian government had banned Indonesian workers from taking up employment in the Middle East in June 2015 in response to a series of problems facing workers in the region.

In desperation, U decided to apply through an unofficial agent instead of using a government provided service, like she had done in the past when she worked in Qatar and Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker in 2006 and 2013.

“It was for economic reasons. After the divorce, I had to find a way to make a living,” U said in an interview on Thursday.

It was not until she had departed from Jakarta for a transit in Batam, Riau Islands Province, that U realized something was wrong with the agent.

In Batam, where she waited for two weeks, she was told that she would be placed in Damascus, Syria, despite having applied for placement in Doha.

“At that point, I had already realized that the agent was crooked,” she said. “But I could do nothing. The ticket was already issued and I had been picked by my sponsor,” she added.

U managed to return home to Indonesia on Wednesday thanks to assistance from the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus.

She is just one of the many women who have fallen victim to human trafficking by illegal agents, who woo people facing economic hardships with offers of overseas work opportunities.

On Thursday, the National Police announced that following a tip-off from the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus they had arrested eight individuals, all Indonesians, working for two different agencies that were illegally sending Indonesian workers to Damascus and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

The two agencies had “counterfeited immigration documents and also allegedly issued medical certificates without proper procedures,” said Comr. Gen. Ari Dono, who heads the National Police’s criminal investigation division.

Through the investigation, the police discovered that at least 110 Indonesian female workers had been sent to Abu Dhabi by the agency since 2016 and suspected hundreds more had been sent by the other agency to Damascus.

At least 800 human trafficking victims have returned home from Syria since 2012, with help from the embassy in Damascus, said Abdul Kholiq Zahron of the consular unit.

“We do not know how many other workers are trapped in Syria. With the conflict still ongoing, it is hard to penetrate many regions [of the country],” Abdul said, revealing the embassy’s plan to send another 10 human trafficking victims home in the near future.

U arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday, along with four other women who had fallen victims to human trafficking to Syria, which is also known as the stronghold of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Working for around two years in Damascus, U would often receive her salary very late. But, she considered herself fortunate that her host had been nice to her and she did not experience any physical abuse, unlike many other Indonesian workers sent to various foreign countries.

The police are currently investigating the clinics and medical centers that have helped the agents by issuing medical certificates for the workers.

Of the eight individuals arrested, six had worked for the Abu Dhabi agency and were apprehended in East Jakarta recently, while two others who worked for the Damascus agency were arrested separately in East Nusa Tenggara and Malang, East Java.