Minor girls made to work without wages, now rescued

Two minor girls from Jharkhand, working as domestic workers in the national capital were rescued in separate incidents by a team of Delhi Commission for Women and Delhi Police.

One of them hails from Simaria block of Chatra district and the other is from Tendua village. Both, belonging to poor families, were brought to the capital three years ago, lured by the idea of financially supporting their families.

However, they have not received their salaries till now. Besides, they have not been allowed to talk to their families or go back to their respective villages, a DCW counsellor said.

The DCW received a call about the plight of these girls, aged around 16 years, and sought help to rescue them. The first one was rescued from a house in Anand Vihar and the second from Kotla Mubarakpur in south Delhi.

This is one of the many cases in the capital where minor girls, belonging to poor rural districts, are brought to capital by placement agencies but are not given their salaries.

The Delhi government had in September last year said that a bill to regulate private placement agencies in the capital will be placed in the “next Assembly session”. However, since then, a winter session has passed and the bill is still in the drafting stage.

The girls told  that they were brought to Delhi by an agent of a placement agency and sent to various houses to work.

During the rescue of the first girl, the owners of the house denied employing any minor girl and it was only after the DCW team called the police, the accused handed over the girl to the authorities.
“They told us that they have been asked by the placement agency to give the payment to them and not to the girls,” the counsellor, who was part of the rescue team, said.

About the second rescue, the DCW had received information that the girl had run away from her employers’ house in Dwarka and was currently in Kotla Mubarakur. The DCW team then reached on the spot.

The girls have been sent to different shelter homes.
The caller had in fact informed the DCW of a total of seven such minor girls, who have been employed in different houses as domestic helps.

“We could rescue only two as we could not trace the other five. Out of them, three are in Punjabi Bagh and two in Ramesh Nagar. But we don’t have any other information, and efforts to trace them are on,” she said.