In mourning
Mercy’s (name changed) mother at the family home in Mizoram. Mercy was 17 when she died in Singapore. Her family was told she had committed suicide. But her parents couldn’t bring her body home, as she no longer had an Indian identity. On 28 July 2017, Helen (name changed) left Churachandpur, in Manipur, to work in Singapore as a housemaid. The offer was tempting. More so since her family lived a hand-to-mouth existence in a rented house. The agent had approached her five times with the offer, and finally Helen had said yes. On the day she left, Helen was picked up from her house by the agent in a private van. She was asked to carry her Aadhaar card with her.
After entering Moreh, a village in Manipur which is near the Indo-myanmar border, the agent hired an auto till the border. Helen walked across the border, to where the Myanmar contact was waiting on the other side. They took an auto to reach Tamu and then boarded a bus for Yangon. When Helen was asked by the Myanmar agent to hand over her Aadhaar card, she became suspicious, but had no option but to comply. On reaching Yangon, Helen was taken to a dormitory which had 50 girls, seven of whom were from the Churachandpur district. Helen was asked to hand over her mobile phone. “I put the phone on silent and hid it in my toothbrush bag. My bag and I were thoroughly checked, but they did not find the phone.”
Helen recalls that staying in Yangon was like being under house arrest. “Our day began at 5am. Breakfast was at 7am, followed by housekeeping class. We were not allowed to rest or sleep during the day and could hardly interact with each other. A language class for two hours was a must, an hourlong Burmese class, and one hour of Thai or English. We were not allowed to even go close to the window, let alone step out of the gate. Television was allowed only on Sundays. The doors were always locked.”
During the Burmese language training session, Helen understood that the purpose of their learning Burmese was so that a Myanmarese passport could be made for them. “I was not comfortable with the idea. My name, parents’ names, home address…they would change everything. I had not been scared when I left for the job. But when I came to know that my name and parents’ names were being changed, I was very scared. I knew that this was not right. But all the girls were going through the same process. And nobody knew what to do.
“In the little conversation that I had with the others, we all wished that there was a way to contact someone back home,” says Helen. “I had a phone, but no sim card. The Indian sim card did not work in Yangon. One of the Indian girls who was leaving for Singapore gave me a sim card which she had got from an earlier batch of girls. I hid it and waited for the right time.”
Helen searched for the contact number of the Churachandpur superintendent office’s and on September 8, Whatsapped photos and the location to the SP’S office from the washroom. After her alert, a task force was set up, involving the Manipur Home Department, superintendent of police, Churachandpur, and the embassy of India, Yangon. Eight Manipuri girls were rescued and sent back to India on 29 September.