A Sri Lankan woman has been stranded in the Cook Islands for three years, and every country on her route home has refused to let her pass through. Ruchira Ranasingha, 50, says she would go “handcuffed, bound and gagged” if that is what it takes to get back to Sri Lanka.

Ranasingha left Sri Lanka in 2018 after her small T-shirt factory closed due to a loss of business. Struggling to repay loans, she moved to Hong Kong to work as a domestic caregiver for elderly people and children. Her brother told BBC Sinhala that she had come under immense financial pressure, and that her husband, a drug addict, had died about seven years ago.

In December 2022, she travelled to New Zealand, where she said she lived with a cousin on a two-month visit visa. As that visa neared expiry, she says an immigration interpreter helped her apply for asylum, arguing that she faced threats from lenders in Sri Lanka. She was granted an asylum seeker “open work visa”, which allowed her to work for almost any employer for a year. She found a job at a restaurant, and the employer agreed to sponsor an employment visa.

That sponsorship did not go anywhere. Asylum seekers generally cannot apply for other visas while their claims are being processed in New Zealand, so the application was declined.

The advice that sent her out of the country

Ranasingha then contacted Immigration & Secretarial Services, a firm that she claims told her a fresh employment visa application could be made from overseas. Email correspondence the BBC has seen shows the firm’s manager, Sylviane Gallant, saying she would start the process as soon as Ranasingha had left the country. Ranasingha booked a short stay in the Cook Islands while the application was made.

It was a fatal misstep. The employment visa was refused again. Because she had left New Zealand, she had violated the terms of her existing visa, and New Zealand authorities made clear they would not grant her any future visas.

Ranasingha says Gallant made several interventions on her behalf, including writing to politicians such as Chris Penk, New Zealand’s then immigration minister. In the end, she says, Gallant admitted the situation was her fault and told her there was nothing more she could do. “She told me I was better off going home. There was nothing holding me there so I agreed to go.”

A ticket home that cannot be used

She went to the airport with an Air New Zealand ticket to Sri Lanka. She was told she could not board without a New Zealand transit visa.

What followed was a string of rejections. Three applications for a New Zealand transit visa were refused, with authorities saying they were not convinced she would leave New Zealand. Four applications for Australian transit visas were also rejected.

New Zealand suggested she explore other routes. She did. The US state of Hawaii and the French Polynesian island of Tahiti both told her she would need to provide biometric information before any visa could be processed, and that this could only be done in person in New Zealand. That was the one place she was barred from entering.

Her most recent application to New Zealand set out the alternative routes she had tried, along with her son’s upcoming wedding and her mother’s failing health. It was also rejected.

“I have lost so much money on tickets,” she said, breaking down. “For almost four years I have been just applying for visa after visa with nothing working out.”

Trapped on an island paradise

The Cook Islands are known for sweeping sandy beaches and rugged volcanic peaks, sitting just four hours from Auckland. For Ranasingha, they have become a cage. She is an involuntary guest.

She is luckier than others in her position, she says. Her hotel lets her stay free of charge in its staff accommodation, and local people have given her food and clothing. One of the hotel directors gave her a sewing machine, which lets her earn a small income. “My mother always tells me I must have done something good, for me to be in a place like this where people have been so kind to me,” she said.

Kindness does little to ease the sense of being trapped. Ranasingha says the stress is damaging her health. “I am scared something is going to happen to me,” she said.

Experts point to bad advice and a closed door

Auckland-based immigration law specialist Alastair McClymont said he did not know what a solution could look like. He said she had received “terrible advice” that “certainly” could not have come from a genuine immigration lawyer. He pointed to an industry of “so-called immigration consultants” who charge people to lodge applications without fully explaining the risks. Ranasingha says she has paid thousands of New Zealand dollars in fees to Immigration & Secretarial Services.

McClymont suggested New Zealand is unlikely to grant the transit visa because, from its perspective, she has no intention of returning to Sri Lanka after making an asylum claim that said her life was in danger there. New Zealand works closely with Australia, he added, so Canberra is also unlikely to let her transit. He expected France and the United States to reach similar conclusions. “She is going to have to transit through somewhere and no-one will want to take the risk.”

Immigration New Zealand said it had received multiple transit visa applications from Ranasingha, all declined “as we were not satisfied she has a genuine intention to transit through New Zealand.” Asked why a transit visa could not be granted even if she agreed to be handcuffed and escorted, a representative of the immigration minister’s office said such measures do not prevent individuals from making an asylum claim.

Australia’s interior ministry said it would not comment on individual cases, but noted that non-citizens travelling to Australia must meet the requirements of the Migration Act 1958 and the Migration Regulations 1994.

A family searching for a way through

Ranasingha’s family has been trying to see whether the Sri Lankan government can help. Her brother said they had tried “every possible avenue”, but “so far we haven’t been able to get anywhere on this.”

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said it was “taking all necessary steps to facilitate her return to Sri Lanka from the Cook Islands.” It said officials at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Wellington, along with relevant New Zealand authorities, were working closely with the ministry on the case.

For now, there is no confirmed route home. Her son is due to marry in November, and she will not be there. Her mother is in and out of hospital, worried sick about her daughter. Ranasingha has done what she was told, and it has left her with nothing to fly with.

The family’s biggest fear is what may come if the diplomatic process stalls. Her brother said she had told him that if authorities were not willing to get her back home alive, they might at least repatriate her body.

“I will do anything they ask of me - I just want to go home.”

Ranasingha’s brother said her mental state is not good. Her case has now exposed how a single piece of bad advice, followed to the letter, can leave a person with no legal way out.