Guwahati, Jul 16, 2022, By Agencies
Guwahati July 16: During his morning walks in the Hauz Khas enclave in the posh South Delhi neighbourhood in the mid-2000s, a retired civil servant always observed that many young girls, engaged as domestic help were taking out the pet dogs for a morning round. To his amazement, he came to know that almost all of those girls serving the households in the locality were from tea plantation areas of his home district—Lakhimpur in Assam. It was after a considerable time that he was told that the girls were trafficked to Delhi from Assam.
In 2006, Magdelena Kulu (name changed), then just twenty years old from Junu Basti, close Koilamari Tea Estate in Lakhimpur district of Assam, was taken up by one Samel, an agent of a New Delhi-based placement agency and was brought to Gurgaon. She was promised a monthly salary of Rs. 7,900 by the agency for work as a domestic help in a household. But even after labouring hard for her job in a household for a year, where she also faced physical abuse, Magdelana was not paid a penny by Samel.
She could return home only after convincing Samel that she had contacts with Adivasi student leaders of Assam. She was paid only Rs. 1,500 by Samel and sent by a train to Assam in 2007. Now in her forties, Alberta lives a single life with economic hardship at her home. The same agent, Samel who also hails from Junu Basti, took another young girl Matilda from the same village to New Delhi in 2006. Matilda returned some years later, got married and left Junu Basti for good. The villagers say that Matilda was forced to take part in pornography by her captors in New Delhi. A placement agency named Sri Sai Enterprise of J.J. Colony, New Delhi was the office of Samel.
In nearby Balijan village, a six-year-old girl Carmella was taken to New Delhi as domestic help by one Rafael Kujur from Ujjwalpur, Lilabari in 2008. According to Jawney, Carmella’s mother and a casual worker at the Koilamari Tea Estate, her husband sold her daughter to trafficking agent Rafael during her absence as she (Carmella) was preparing for her school. Jawney met Rafael several times later on but each time he denied his involvement. For almost fifteen years, Jawney has received no information about Carmella. She even does not have a single photograph of her daughter.
On 6th March 2013 the upper house of the Parliament, the Rajya Sabha was rocked by the report of four hundred cases of missing girl child from Lakhimpur district alone as reported by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, an NGO working on this issue led by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi.
In June, 2015, Lakhi (name changed), a 12th passed girl in her early twenties returned home in Koilamari Tea Estate in Lakhimpur district from a household in Delhi where she had been engaged as domestic help. Lakhi was promised a job with a decent salary by Ursula Tete of No. 2 Labour Line of the same tea estate and sent to Delhi after taking her educational certificates and the PAN card. But in reality, Lakhi was forced to work under inhuman conditions in Delhi and not allowed to speak to her parents back home over the phone. Her parents were only intimated by Ursula when Lakhi fell in six months later. Lakhi’s parents rushed to Delhi only to find her in critical condition. They took her back home without getting any salary for her work as domestic help. Ursula also has not returned Lakhi’s educational testimonials and her PAN card after her return. Lakhi’s mother, who went to Delhi to rescue her, tells about trafficked girls from various parts of the country kept in a house of a woman from Jharkhand in Delhi. She also alleges that the trafficked girls, who were promised good jobs, were actually put in the flesh trade in Delhi. For her, Ursula is solely responsible for the plight of her daughter.
Trafficking of young girls from Assam to outside the state is reported mostly from the tea plantation areas spread over the inter-state boundary with Arunachal Pradesh. The traditional movement of men and local products across the inter-state boundary has emerged as the gateway to the world of trafficking, bondage and slavery as the socially marginalized tea plantation workers are easily lured to send their daughters for work inside Arunachal Pradesh.
Ranee, a twelve-year-old daughter of Holy Malpahari from No. 15 Line of Zoihing Tea Estate, in Lakhimpur district was picked up by one Deepak Chetry of Banderdewa, Banderdewa from her in 2008. Since then there has been no news of Ranee for her parents. There is also no news of Nikita (12), daughter of Samra Malpahari of the same labour line of the tea estate. Nikita too was taken away by an agent to be engaged in domestic work in Arunachal Pradesh in 2008.