NEW DELHI: The first Covid lockdown last year had left a family of five in Bihar empty-handed, and they decided to migrate to Delhi seven months ago as the sole breadwinner of the family also needed treatment for a medical condition and couldn’t find any help there. The couple looked for work and the wife got employed as a domestic help. A few months later, their 17-year-old daughter was lured by a placement agency to work as a domestic help in Kirti Nagar. Hoping their hardship would end, she readily agreed to the job for which she was promised Rs 12,000 per month. However, on April 14, 2021, Bandhua Mukti Morcha, an organisation helping workers in the informal sector across the country, was informed by the mother that her daughter was being forced to work without wages, and also confined and beaten up. She said that two days ago, her daughter had contacted her and narrated her ordeals. Next day, the woman requested the placement agency to send her daughter back, but the principal employer asked her to leave. On April 15, advocate Vinod Kumar Singh of Bandhua Mukti Morcha and Soziio from Human Right Law Network met the subdivisional magistrate (SDM) of Rajouri Garden to request an urgent rescue. The next day, the girl was rescued. Her statement was recorded later before the SDM and an FIR was registered at Kirti Nagar police station. However, even after a month, no release certificate, essential for complete rehabilitation of a bonded labourer, was issued by the district administration despite three representations, prompting advocates Carolin Kasar and Osbert Khaling to file a writ petition in Delhi High Court. Even as the case got listed for May 25, the SDM called an urgent meeting on May 24 and issued the release certificate. The high court has disposed of the matter with directions to the respondent to comply with the plea and provide interim relief within seven days. Nirmal Gorana, general secretary of Bandhua Mukti Morcha, said the rescued minor bonded labourer should be rehabilitated on an urgent basis to keep alive the objective of Bonded Labour System Abolition Act 1976. In 2016, the Centre also implemented Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourers to enable such labourers live a life with dignity. Gorana has also appealed to the Centre to included domestic work under the schedule employment list as per Minimum Wages Act 1948.
In Delhi for survival, the Woman works with No Commission, Defeated
