Beaten, starved, enslaved: Stories of 21 rescued girls

NEW DELHI: When the 16-year-old wept and asked for money from the owner of the placement agency which had brought her to Delhi from Sahibganj in Jharkhand, she had a rolling pin stuffed into her mouth. When she wanted to go home, she was beaten. She is among the 21 girls rescued from different places in Delhi in a coordinated operation by Delhi Police and Jharkhand Police along with an NGO.
The girls narrated the horror they faced at places where they had been promised a good life. The teenager came to Delhi assured of gainful employment. "I fell for the trafficker's promises of a good life and came to Delhi," she said. In the city, she was taken to a placement agency in Fatehpur Beri, from where she was sent to work in a kothi as a maid. She found the work promised by the trafficker was completely different in reality. The atrocities started when she requested the placement agency owner to send her back home. "I told the placement agency owner to let me go, but he didn’t listen to me and I was forced to work for months," she said. The 16-year-old girl added, "The placement agency owner beat me. What could I do other than cry?"
Another 16-year-old girl recounted the atrocities she suffered at the hands of the placement agency owner. "He beat me mercilessly and on one occasion, the stick he was beating me with even broke.”
Among the rescued were siblings for whom the trafficker has paid Rs 7,000 each to their father before they were put on a train to Delhi. When they went missing, the father approached police in Jharkhand.
Twenty-one girls have been rescued so far, fourteen of whom are minors from remote areas in Sahibganj. During the investigation, police recovered a list of more than 30 girls and details about their employers. The placement agency owner charged clients a registration fee of Rs 45,000, and the girls' salaries ranged from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000.
Revealing more atrocities, a senior officer at Jharkhand Bhawan said that in one of the rescues, they found that a young girl had to sleep on the cold floor during the harsh winter, with her belongings stored inside the bathroom. "Several girls told us that they barely received enough food and weren't compensated for their work," the officer said, adding, "The traffickers who brought them to Delhi were from the same village so they were able to gain the trust of the girls and their families. The girls were found working in affluent households and the cops have been asked to take action against these employers."
The girls had no scheduled working hours and so worked day and night. "They all come from remote areas in Jharkhand and belong to very poor families," the officer said. Virender Kumar Singh of NGO Mission Mukti Foundation said, "One of the girls said that she was sexually assaulted. Police are investigating her claim but two people have been arrested in the case."