On September 2, 13-year-old Gupi* arrived at the Bokaro station from Delhi by Purshottam Express, accompanied by the police. A few minutes later, the Adivasi girl, who had worked as a domestic worker in Delhi, boarded a bus to Ranchi and then to Gumla, her home district. In Gumla, she was produced before the Child Welfare Committee where her testimony was recorded, and hours later, she was sent back to her village.
It is a routine that repeats every month. Since January, 140 children, almost all of whom had worked as domestic workers, returned to Jharkhand. Diya Sewa Sansathan, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that has been operating a missing children helpline with the Jharkhand Police since October 2013, say it has recorded information on 220 children, mostly tribal children, missing from 22 districts. Of them, 100 have been traced back, with 70 rescued or having fled from domestic work in Delhi.
Twelve-year-old Sabi (name changed) escaped from the room in which she would be locked in for the night in a house in Delhi, jumping from the room’s window into the building staircase.
“Uncle, aunty lived in the house with a Bhaiya, Didi and their infant. I took care of the baby. They gave me roti usually in the evening. At night, I had to massage aunty’s feet and apply oil and only after she slept, I could sleep. Then Bhaiya would lock me in my room,” she recounted.
She said it had been a year since she had spoken to anyone in her family. She had been beaten with a rolling pin and once with a hot tawa. She said she fled from the house after the woman in the house she worked in cut her hair without asking her.
Among children who have returned to Jharkhand after working as a domestic help is nine-year-old Sabita, whose family in Khunti district, on being traced, refused to take her back. “I lived with my maternal uncle. A woman came to the village and took me with her after asking my uncle. The family I worked with were all right, but they cut my hair saying I had lice. The grandmother in the house would scold me often and hit me saying I had stolen food from the fridge. But I hadn’t. I ran out of their door till I reached the road,” recounted Sabita, now staying in a shelter home run by the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS).
“Some of the children do not speak at all for days. Some of them, including those younger than 13, recollect how their employers told them that they have been bought for Rs. 10,000-20,000. They say they understood hum bichwa gaye hain (we had been sold to them),” said Budhmani Oraon who teaches children at a shelter home run by the BKS in Chanho on the outskirts of Ranchi.
“The Jharkhand government has prepared an action plan delineating the responsibilities of various departments — labour, home, women and children — when a child is rescued, but there are no clear directions on rehabilitating children, placing them in good residential schools,” said Rishikant of Shaktivahini, an NGO.
First published in The Hindu.
Anumeha Yadav 