The trafficked girl: A childhood stolen
“I like to study,” says Bijita Ekka, 15. “I always wanted to be a teacher.”
Born in the Bundapani Tea Estate in Dooars, where her parents were employed as permanent workers, Bijita was raised in a simple mud-and-straw house with her 14-year-old sister.
“Life was very good; I had everything I wanted,” she remembers fondly. But when Bundapani closed in July 2013, Bijita’s fate changed radically.
After the closure, the 1,215 Bundapani workers kept plucking for few months, selling the leaves to middlemen at a discounted price. But the lack of nursing and fertilizers soon affected the quality of tea, forcing them to stop.
A promising student, Bijita had to drop out of school and join her mother in stonecrushing. Their meagre earnings could not sustain the family, so when an agent promised good jobs as domestic workers, Bijita and her mother left for Delhi.
Once there, the girl was immediately separated from her mother and taken to a different house. The agent raped her for days. Bijita was then brought to the city of Chandigarh to serve as a domestic helper.
“Husband and wife used to beat me if I made any mistake,” she remembers. “When they were out I was locked inside the house, so that I could not escape.”
Bijita was able to return home one year later, after her mother had repeatedly threatened the agent with calling police. The family didn’t receive a penny for Bijita’s work; her wages were paid directly to the agent.
According to a local social worker, since the garden closure there have been more than 300 human trafficking cases in Bundapani, with one-third still unresolved.
“If the tea garden had been open I would have never left,” says Bijita.
“(The) husband and wife used to beat me if I made any mistake.”
BIJITA EKKA WHO WAS RAPED AND ABUSED WHILE FORCED TO WORK AS A DOMESTIC HELPER