New Delhi: A 14-year-old girl from Jharkhand, who was rescued from a home in Delhi where she was kept locked-up by a couple while they were away on a vacation, is now enjoying her days in freedom. She was rescued in March last year from the flat where she spent seven months as a domestic help for a doctor couple.

The girl is in Delhi again, where she addressed a function on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour today. She narrated her plight as the domestic help in the couple’s apartment and her life after she was rescued.

“My mother wanted me to study. I wanted to help out the family as my father was ill,” she said. A placement agent had brought her to Delhi from Gumli in Jharkhand, she added.

Surviving on little food after the couple left her locked-up in their Dwarka apartment, she had finally mustered the courage to shout for help from the balcony, which led to her rescue. She had later said that her employers used CCTV cameras to monitor her activities, and that she was beaten, abused and her hair was chopped off by them.

Today, she lives in a residential school and is studying in the seventh standard in Jharkhand. She says she loves football and she hopes to become a teacher one day. As for her life one year back, she has this message for her former employers: “I hope they don’t ill-treat any other girl like they treated me.” The couple was arrested for the harassment along with the placement agent, Mukesh, for buying or disposing of any person as slave.Nishi Kant, a member of NGO Shakti Vahini, says the girl’s mother had to be persuaded to allow her to go to school and it only worked out because she was offered some compensation.

Child labour is illegal in India, with several laws in place which can land a person in jail for employing any child below the age of 14.  However, children are still reportedly employed in many industries and homes across the country. Some work in hazardous environment, while many are pushed into forced labour, or are sold into prostitution. This 14-year-old’s story will stand out as an inspiration to many children who reportedly return to the city to work after being rescued, showing  them that there is way out of the vicious circle of child labour.

The Haryana Government has decided to designate all courts of Sessions Judges and Additional Sessions Judges at each district, excluding Additional Sessions Judges (ad hoc) and Fast Track Courts, as Children’s Courts.

This move is aimed at expediting the trial of offences against children and violations of child rights under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

“Under Section 28 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, special courts under the relevant section of the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, shall also be special courts under it to try offences. The Act ensures a child-friendly judicial process. It encourages such children as having been victims of sexual abuse, to bring the offender to book and seek redressal for their suffering as well as to obtain assistance in overcoming their trauma. It makes such agencies of the State as the police, the judiciary and the child protection machinery, collaborators in securing justice to a sexually abused child,” said Sumita Misra, the director general of the Women and Child Development Department.

Saying that it was a “welcome step” and would “go a long way in ensuring justice to the children in time”, Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini, a non-government organisation, cautioned that there is a need to sensitise the judiciary towards child-related issues to bring about a real change in the situation.

“It has been often seen that the offenders in children-related cases such as child labour are easily granted bail despite there being instances of violence against the victim. Also, the police on some occasions invoke lenient sections in such cases making it easy for the offenders to go scot-free. It is the job of the judiciary to ensure that relevant sections are invoked as per the extent of the crime committed to ensure complete justice,” argued Mr. Kant.

New Delhi: Abused and tortured by a doctor couple, who employed her in an upscale Dwarka society, a 13-year-old girl’s traumatic story of confinement and human rights violation had last April made the authorities sit up and take note of the growing violence against minor domestic helps. A year later, the child has emerged as an icon of courage for other girls in her home state of Jharkhand. Very good in her studies and a class monitor, she stood third in her Class VI final exams. She is now a smiling teenager, dreaming of becoming a teacher.

She will be the key speaker at a function being organized by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights on the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour at Vigyan Bhawan on Wednesday. The terrified girl, who was rescued from the Dwarka house on March 29, 2012, when her employers were vacationing in Thailand, is now a confident survivor. As she walked out of Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday evening, TOI spoke to her over the phone.

Looking forward to telling the audience at Vigyan Bhawan her story, that is listed as a testimony in the NCPCR invitation, the 14-year-old said, “I must tell everyone why I came to Delhi to work. It is important for them to know the circumstances that brought me here.” Her father is mentally unstable and her mother’s irregular wages were not enough to feed a family of six. “I have a brother and two sisters. All of them are younger to me,” she said. In short, it was poverty which drove her family to send her to Delhi for work.

Memories of her stay at Delhi make her grim. “Bahut bure log the woh,” (they were very bad people) she says softly, in almost a whimper. Not wanting to discuss her pain, she says that once she was sent back by the government to Jharkhand, her life had a new meaning.

With NCPCR’s intervention, she was admitted to Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, a residential school. Enrolled in Class VI, she is now monitor of her class. Good at studies, she loves science the most and is working on her English. She says proudly how she stood third in her class and is looking forward to doing better this year.

On child labour, she is clear. “Hum school mein sab ladkiyon se kehtey hain Dilli mat jana kaam karne. (I tell all my schoolmates not to go to Delhi for work).

The girl’s tormentors had been arrested on April 4, five days after they returned to Delhi. They were later released on bail. The child had been forced to do all household chores but made to virtually starve and given no salary. The CWC had found out that she had been forced out of school by her uncle who had passed her on to a trafficker. Eventually, a placement agency sent her to the Dwarka family.

• Doctor couple apply for bail, extend vacation fearing arrest (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• Tired of being abused, child helps run away (traffickingnews.wordpress.com)
• Tired of being abused, child helps run away (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• Doctor couple lock 13-yr-old help in house, fly to Bangkok (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• Minor Help Locked Up As Couple Holidays (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• We cannot allow our children to work (traffickingnews.wordpress.com)
• Maid locked in hellhole flat with salt, atta (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• Delhi doctor couple denied bail in maid abuse case (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• Children Rescued From Sex Abuse in a Joint Raid by Shakti Vahini and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)
• NGO shield for trafficker (shaktivahini.wordpress.com)

THE HINDU

A day after a minor domestic help was rescued from the house of a businessman in Sector 15 here, the Faridabad Police on Thursday registered a case under the Juvenile Justice Act in this connection.

“We have registered a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 23 of the JJ Act based on the complaint of non-government organisation Shakti Vahini. More sections could be added to the FIR during the course of investigation if need arises,” said a senior Faridabad Police officer.

Meanwhile, the Gurgaon Child Welfare Committee along with the local police mounted raid at the Nathurpur village address of Triveni Placement Agency that had supplied the girl to her Faridabad employer. “The agency owner, Rajesh, has already been detained by the Gurgaon Police on Wednesday night in connection with an attempt to rape case and taken to Panipat. We seized some documents revealing that the agency had supplied 20-30 women as domestic helps. The details about the placement of minor girls will be revealed during the interrogation of Rajesh, a native of Jharkhand. His wife and daughter were present at home at the time of raid,” said District Probation Officer (Gurgaon) Nisha Singh, who is attached to the Child Welfare Department.

“The raid was conducted after the Faridabad Child Welfare Committee approached their Gurgaon counterpart and sought thorough investigation into the case,” said Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini.

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Three Indian brothers received the Vital Voices Global Leadership Award from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in March (right). Ravi, Rishi and Nishi Kant, who started the nongovernmental organization Shakti Vahini to fight violence and injustice against women and children in 2001, won the “Solidarity Award” at an event at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Over the past decade, Shakti Vahini has rescued more than 2,000 people, 70 percent of whom were children. Vital Voices, which was started by former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 1997, also holds Shakti Vahini as a model NGO, “one that addresses legal, advocacy and rescue missions simultaneously,” says the Washington Post.

TIMES OF INDIA

GURGAON/FARIDABAD: A minor girl, employed as domestic help in a household at Sector 15 in Faridabad, was rescued on Tuesday. The girl was allegedly tortured and kept in confinement by her employer.

The rescue operation was conducted on a tip-off from Childline to Shakti Vahini, an NGO and the Faridabad police, along with a member from the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on Tuesday. A daily diary report has been filed in the case.

During counseling, it was revealed that the girl was working as domestic help for the last five to six years. The victim said she belongs to the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, and has been working with the present employer for the past four years. She said she was brought to Delhi a neighbourhood woman identified as Kavita, who handed her over to Triveni Placement Agency in Gurgaon.

Since the placement agency that employed the girl is based in Gurgaon, Savitri Dhaka, chairperson, Haryana State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (HSCPCR), has asked the Gurgaon deputy commissioner to look into the matter.

Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini said the minor stated that the employer as well as his wife and their children used to beat her up. She was often discriminated against by the employer’s family. She was never allowed to sit on the sofa and sleep on the bed during these four years. She was also not paid for her work. The girl said she was kept locked inside the house when her employer’s family would go out.

“There is a need to formulate a national law on the placement agencies. A lot of them are mushrooming in Gurgaon without any regulatory check on them. Minors are trafficked to Gurgaon and other places through them,” Kant said.

Presently, the girl has been accommodated in a shelter home as per the direction of the CWC.

Shakti Vahini has coordinated with the superintendent of police, Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, who has traced the girl’s family. A request has also been sent to the Faridabad DCP and SCPCR and the Gurgaon commissioner of police for a large-scale investigation on the placement agencies.

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TIMES OF INDIA  AMBIKA PANDIT 

NEW DELHI: When Seema (name changed) boarded the train to Kolkatta from New Delhi Railway Station she hoped this will be her last visit to the capital and the end of a 10-year long trauma that began in 2003. She was abducted along with her sister and dumped in the city’s largest red light area on G B Road. They were rescued a year later.

Happily married and settled in their native village, the two girls who were then 15-years-old, have grown into strong women. Since then, they have come thrice to Delhi to give their statement in the ongoing case against the culprits at a trial court here.

TOI met the women at the railway station as they waited in the sweltering heat. On being asked why they were here despite the soaring temperatures, Seema said, “I don’t want other girls to fall in the same rut.” Seema was beaten and tortured while she was at the brothel and cannot bear a child due to the atrocities inflicted on her by the brothel-keeper. But her supportive husband makes life worth living for her.

Seema remembers how she and her cousin sister had set out by train from their native village to visit a relative in a nearby district. A woman co-passenger offered the sisters water which they accepted without any suspicion. The girls have no memory of what transpired thereafter and only gained consciousness after reaching Delhi.

Seema recalls how the sisters made many failed attempts to flee. A year later, when the brothel was raided, the brothel-keeper shifted Seema to a hideout in Shakarpur in east Delhi. She used this opportunity to her benefit. When the residents of the house below realized she was being held captive they called the police to rescue her. Seema then led the police team to the brothel and her sister was also rescued.

The sisters returned to West Bengal and say that if it wasn’t for the support they got from their families, they would have never survived. “Our neighbors used to pass hurtful comments but my father and brother supported us. We eventually got married and our husbands know of our past,” said Seema’s cousin Nitu, who now has a five-year-old daughter.

But the sisters feel the pain of the long drawn legal battle that has dragged on for 10 years. The sisters say that all they want now is to see the accused punished.

Rishikant from NGO Shakti Vahini, which has been assisting the girls through the case, said the sisters were not given any kind of rehabilitation by the West Bengal government or the Delhi government. “Both girls have been called to give witness thrice. It is traumatic for them to repeat the same statements. Expeditious proceedings are critical in such cases so that the victims don’t have to appear again and again,” he said.

NEW DELHI:Taking suo motu cognisance of media reports of trafficking and abuse of a girl rescued from a brothel in GB Road, the Delhi High Court bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath issued notices to the Delhi government, Delhi Police and NGO Shakti Vahini, asking them to file their replies to the report that the girl was threatened when she was produced before a magistrate and the brothel owners had represented some person as the girl’s “father” in an attempt to take her back. The next hearing is on July 10.

In a letter written to the police commissioner, a girl rescued from the city’s red light area has recounted her traumatic experiences and demanded action against the traffickers who forced her into prostitution.

Two girls were recently rescued from the city’s red light area but the police are yet to make any arrests.

In a bid to save other girls, one of them has written to the police commissioner and urged the police to arrest the trafficker.

According to NGO Shakti Vahini, which was part of the rescue operation, the girls were found from two different tunnels that were barely enough for one person. “Tunnels are being used by brothel keepers for hiding trafficked girls during raids. The attic of the main floor was divided into small cubicles. In the last cubicle, there was a tunnel where the girl was crammed and hidden by the brothel manager,” Rishikant of Shakti Vahini NGO said.

The girls had been there for about one hour. “The tunnel had no ventilation and the only entry into the tunnel was a small wooden plank, which had to be kicked inside by two policemen to rescue the girls. The girls looked traumatised and shaken by the ordeal,” he added. The victim’s father, who was from West Bengal, had approached the NGO and provided a picture of his daughter.

 A joint team of members of the NGO and local police was formed to conduct the raid. “She was kidnapped while on her way to school. But since the traffickers have not been arrested yet, the girl decided to write a letter to agencies concerned for some action,” he said.

“Whenever we get any inputs, we conduct raids to rescue girls who have been forced into prostitution,” said a senior police officer.

In her letter, the girl has given details of four traffickers and brothel managers and has demanded strict action against them. “I request the chairperson to take immediate action against the traffickers and the brothel keepers so that many girls like me can be saved from the racket,” she wrote in her letter, addressed to the National Commission for Women (NCW).

BY DWIPAYAN GHOSH IN TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: One of the two young women rescued from Delhi’s hellhole—the infamous GB Road on Friday—could never had never imagined her traffickers going such lengths to try and push her back into flesh trade. Two women, who appeared before the local court where she was produced on Saturday, claimed they were her aunts but could provide no document to prove it. They even refused to state how her parents lost their lives, a claim they made before the court. Cops believe the two are part of the trafficking gang but managed to slip away from the court premises before they could be detained. Police, though, said there was no evidence against the two women to take any action against them.

Shakti Vahini, the NGO that helped rescue her, claimed she is a minor. However, the victim has told Kamla Market police that she is 19 years old and hence a major. This is the reason she was initially not produced before a juvenile justice board. Police claim she’s from Nepal. The local court has now given a detailed order in the case. “Two women, Sarita and Bakula, have appeared and submitted they are the mausi and bua of the girl, respectively. However, they could not provide the names of her parents or how their deaths occurred though they claimed they had passed away. It is doubtful if the women are related to her at all,” metropolitan magistrate Sachin Sangwan said.

The order goes on to state that the cops must get the ossification test of the girl done as there is no document to show that she is a minor.

The other victim, an 18-year-old student from South 24-Parganas, is not happy that Delhi Police has decided to leave it to police in West Bengal to register a case and conduct investigations even after she named five persons. “I request the chairperson to take immediate action against the traffickers and brothel keepers so that many like me can be saved,” she wrote to National Commission for Women.