Slavery in 2024: A story from New Delhi

ON February 12, Mamta Kandulna was rescued by her paternal aunt Kiran Kandulna, with the help of local police and union leader Anita Kapoor, from her captors’ house in West Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi.Mamta was just over 18 at that time. Christian by faith, she belongs to the Munda tribe from Sindega District, Jharkhand. When she first came to Delhi, she knew very little Hindi and had no knowledge of English. She had studied only till 8th standard. Her family conditions made her a vulnerable victim to human trafficking and modern-day slavery.Mamta has three younger siblings— two sisters and one brother. Their mother had abandoned them at a young age and their father had passed away in 2018–19. Left to the mercy of the extended family (who themselves belong to a highly impoverished background)— it was a combination of these destitute conditions and Mamta’s guilty conscience as the eldest sibling that caused her to take the drastic step of coming to the foreign land of New Delhi..Her family conditions made her a vulnerable victim to human trafficking and modern-day slavery..How Mamta is trafficked and forced into slaveryIn 2022, Mamta and her siblings went to their maternal aunt’s village in Jharkhand. There, the maternal aunt (mausi), introduced her to one Swati. Swati and mausi played upon Mamta’s guilty conscience as the eldest sibling and pressured her to travel to Delhi to take up domestic work.She was told that all she would have to do was cleaning jobs (jhaadu/pocha) for a few hours a day and she would be paid at least ₹6,000 per month for it. This amount would be sufficient to meet her expenses in Delhi as well as to provide for her siblings back home in Jharkhand. Before this, Mamta had never visited Ranchi or any other major city, let alone Delhi.Mamta’s age was 15 or 16 when she was brought to Delhi by Swati. Here, Mamta meets Swati’s partner-in-crime, Vasant Sahoo. While Swati’s role is to prey upon and supply vulnerable girls from Jharkhand, Sahoo’s role is that of placement agent— to place these girls in rich influential households in Delhi as in-house domestic workers. Once Mamta reached Delhi, she was taken to Sahoo’s one-room office in Shakarpur. She was made to stay inside the office and never left alone..Lives at stake: The cost of a billion-dollar textile industry.Soon, Sahoo and Swati found potential employers for Mamta— the Puri family. Puris reside in Punjabi Bagh West, New Delhi. It is a three-generation household with two children who are slightly younger than Mamta. On March 28, 2022, Mamta met her employers. The Puris did not think it was necessary to discuss the tasks she would have to perform, the living conditions and the wage structure with a young tribal girl.In their opinion, the young tribal girl need not know where she would sleep, how many leaves she would get, her working hours, food arrangements, etc. After all, this tribal girl needed to thank her stars that the Puris, out of their benevolence, were going to let her stay under their cemented roof and in their house full of material comforts.So how did it matter that Mamta was made to work from 6 a.m. in the morning to 1 a.m. in the night every day? How did it matter that she was not given any leaves, not even an off on Christmas?It did not matter that she was made to sleep on the floor in the living room, with zero privacy— and to be woken up as and when any member of the Puri family desired. The Puri women very well knew Mamta was menstruating. Yet, for two years she was not provided a sanitary napkin or even a single bar of soap to bathe herself. She had to make do with a single toothbrush that she had brought with her from Jharkhand for two horrid years.Only discarded clothes would be handed over to Mamta. No undergarments would ever be bought for her. Once in a blue moon, when Mamta would ask for something as little as a bar of soap, the lady of the house, Charu Puri, would take it to her heart and scream her lungs out at Mamta for being ungrateful..She was told that all she would have to do was cleaning jobs (jhaadu/pocha) for a few hours a day and she would be paid at least ₹6,000 per month for it..Mamta used to be locked inside the house whenever the Puri family left for outings. Only on a few rare occasions was Mamta allowed to go to the local temple with the Puri children. The Puris must really believe in secularism, it seems. Why else would they ask a Christian tribal girl to make do with Hindu temple visits and not allow her to visit church even on Christmas?Despite hailing from a rice-eating region, the Puris made sure that Mamta was forced to eat chapatis and only such amounts of food as the Puris deemed adequate for her to eat. During her periods, Mamta would have to rely on old cleaning rags and continue working like every other day. It seems that the Puris really believed in the hustle culture, however, they conveniently forgot the quid pro quo for the 24/7 hustle Mamta would be made to do— wages.For two years, Mamta was made to slave without wages. Twice, when Mamta gathered the courage to ask for wages, Charu Puri screamed at her. She was told that she would be paid her entire wage arrears only at the time of leaving the job. When could Mamta leave the job? She was not told that.For these two years during her slavery, Mamta was routinely screamed at and abused verbally. Whenever she failed to perform a task, the ladies of the Puri household would not just slap her but also use ethnic slurs against her. She would be routinely referred to as “jungli” (primitive). The Puris would also call her out: “Konse jungliyon ne paida kar diya?” (Which primitives have birthed you?), “Kaha kaha junglo mei paida hote hain?” (Which jungles has she been born and brought up in?)..On International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, a look at their precarious lives in Delhi.The Puris, Swati and Sahoo made sure that Mamta could never interact with anyone outside the household. The only family member she was allowed to interact with for a few minutes once every three–four months was the mausi who had sold Mamta into slavery.The mausi was also always concerned, although only regarding her salary. The mausi pressured Mamta to ask for her salary dues from time to time. Mausi also told her that once in 2023, Swati had visited the employers again to get the annual contract renewed. Apparently, the Puris had shouted at Swati as well and made her go away.In these circumstances, when Mamta mustered the courage to ask her masters to be relieved from work, the topic would always be brushed off. Mamta would be made to talk to someone on the phone who claimed to be Vasant Sahoo. Sahoo would assure Mamta that he would definitely come the following month to take her away. But that would never be the case.Rescue and initiation of legal proceedingsOn February 12, 2024, the doorbell of the Puri household rang. Mamta heard a commotion at the entrance door. When she went to open it and found, among the faces of strangers, the face of her paternal aunt, Kiran Kandulna. Mamta leaped for joy, hugged Kiran and just would not let go of her. Among the visitors, there was a local policeman and union leader Anita..The Puris must really believe in secularism, it seems. Why else would they ask a Christian tribal girl to make do with Hindu temple visits and not allow her to visit church even on Christmas?.Two days later, Mamta came to meet me in my office. The policeman who had helped to rescue Mamta had refused to initiate an investigation for forced servitude and various other crimes against the Puris.As a bare minimum, Mamta wanted her wage arrears. I was at a complete loss. My first question to everyone in the room (Mamta, her aunt Kiran, union leader Anita and other well-wishers of Mamta) was: how would they sustain themselves for protracted legal proceedings in Delhi? There was no answer to my question.We proceeded anyway. The next day, Aunt Kiran and Mamta’s cousin (who had come all the way from Jharkhand) visited the local police station in order to get the criminal proceedings initiated, among other things for forced servitude under Section 374 of the Indian Penal Code.In return, the police blatantly threatened Aunt Kiran to not pursue the case, otherwise, they would implicate her under false charges. Having obtained our answer from the local police, the union leader Anita assisted Mamta in approaching the local child welfare committee formed under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 on February 19, 2024.As soon as Mamta’s complaint was lodged with the child welfare committee, the officials, without applying their minds, treated Mamta in the same way as a juvenile delinquent and forced her to undergo medico-legal examination..Who killed EY employee Anna Sebastian Perayil?.Thereafter, they institutionalised her against her wishes and without consulting Aunt Kiran at the local juvenile delinquents’ home. It did not help that the delinquents’ home is located right next to Tihar jail. Aunt Kiran and the rest of Mamta’s family back home were at their wit's end, and rightly so.Culmination of proceedingsIt was only on February 27, 2024 that the child welfare committee released Mamta from the delinquent shelter. Through the child welfare committee, the family of Mamta and the labour union— Shehri Mahila Kamgar Union— were able to prevail over the local police and got the first information report (FIR) registered on March 27, 2024.The police applied their own casteist mind and charged only two members of the Puri household under lighter penal provisions. When questioned about this, the police resorted to their usual tactics to scare Mamta and her family enough to back off.However, these charges proved sufficient to force the Puris into entering into a settlement within a fortnight for wage arrears. Ultimately, Mamta was able to secure her wage arrears for two years amounting to ₹4,90,000 (with interest) and the FIR against the Puris was quashed by the High Court of Delhi on May 16, 2024. Notably, the quashing Order records how the FIR was registered due to “miscommunication” between Mamta and Aunt Kiran.It might have been better if the case had not been aborted midway, but how could one expect Mamta to survive in Delhi during the several years it would have taken to complete the proceedings at the trial level itself?.Perhaps even today the Puris would be justifying their actions by imagining what a charitable job they were doing for the poor tribal kid by providing a concrete roof over her head..How could one have expected the tribal girl and her family to stay put in Delhi after everything they went through at the hands of employers, the police as well as the child welfare committee?One wonders whether this brief episode would have led to some realisation in the Puri family or whether they would have brushed off the one-off incident and gone on to enslave the next vulnerable destitute from poorer regions. Perhaps even today the Puris would be justifying their actions by imagining what a charitable job they were doing for the poor tribal kid by providing a concrete roof over her head.That mindset is not an exception but a pattern in today’s Delhi. It can be ascertained from the reluctance of the local police to charge the Puri family for forced servitude. A couple of court decisions discharging the accused when charged under Section 374, IPC also reflect the slavery mindset in Delhi which remains unchallenged (court decisions). Not surprising then that news reports of domestic workers facing extreme violence keep appearing frequently.It would take a rare and concerted effort to ever conclude proceedings where Section 374, IPC is involved. Until then, cases like Mamta’s would continue to be brushed off as cases of ‘miscommunication’..No names have been changed.

Slavery in 2024: A story from New Delhi

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