Minor Tribal Girl Forced to Work as Domestic Help, Rescued

Delhi Police along with Delhi Commission for Women and NGO Shakti Vahini rescued a 15-year-old girl, originally from Gumla in Jharkhand, from a house in Delhi where she was forced to work as a domestic help. Her employers had kept her for a period of six months now and made her give massages and work all day without taking rest, said the girl.

“They forced me to give body massages to all members of the family and made to do all household work from 6am to 11pm every day. They also did not allow me to take even a minute's rest even when I was unwell,” the girl told the TOI.

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The employers had hidden the girl when the rescue team comprising Delhi police and members of DCW and Shakti Vahini went to the house. They refused that they have kept a minor as a domestic help when the rescue team asked them the first time. However, the team continued having a conversation with the employer and at the same time his son instructed the girl to hide. This is when the rescue team entered the house and evacuated the girl from a locked room on the second floor.

The girl recalled that when she had gone to her grandmother’s house, two women and a man had drugged her and transported her to a placement agency in New Delhi.

While rescuing the girl, the employers started fighting with the team saying that they had taken service of the girl by paying a sum of Rs. 42,000 to a placement agency. And now they wish to get their money back since they won’t have the girl anymore.

Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of Gumla had informed Shakti Vahini about the girl’s case.

A sub-inspector from Gumla, Satyam Kumar told the TOI, “There was a general diary entry at AHTU. When the girl returns home, we will lodge FIRs against the employers and the traffickers.”

During counselling, the girl recalled that when she had gone to her grandmother’s house, two women and a man had drugged her and transported her to a placement agency in New Delhi.

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