Sold six times into domestic slavery, 17-yr-old girl breaks shackles at last

Ranchi girl trafficked to Delhi at the age of 14 and forced to toil for three years

LUCKNOW: Sarita (name changed), is just 17-years-old but has faced a lot in this short span, caught in the web of child slavery.

Hailing from the rural area on the outskirts of Ranchi, Jharkhand, she was trafficked to Delhi at least six times in the past three years to be sold to slave agents.

She spent her days working as domestic help in bungalows and flats of posh localities in Delhi and Haryana before landing in Lucknow accidentally on Wednesday.

Sarita fell prey to child trafficking at the age of 14 and was forced into slavery widely prevalent in the national capital and its adjoining region.

While narrating her story to Hindustan Times on Friday, she said that she was not the lone girl trafficked to Delhi and forced to slavery, nearly 13-14 girls of the same group were are still in captivity of slave agents.

The girl said the slaves survived on stale food given by the employers and worked almost 15-16 hours a day.

Sometimes, they were also been beaten up and threatened using different tactics when they expressed the desire to return home, , she said.

The slave girls were paid hardly ₹ 3000 per month and the rest was taken away by the slave agents, who purchased the girls from trafficking gangs to live off their hard earned money.

She said forced slaves could easily be found in a number of houses in Pashchim Vihar, Punjabi Bagh and Lajwati Garden areas of Delhi and Karnal, Haryana.

She herself had worked at these places for three years before managing to escape from the agents’ clutches on July 31 and landing in Lucknow after boarding a wrong train to Ranchi. The GRP cops found her and presently she is living in a shelter home with the sole desire to meet her parents living in Bahredi village on the outskirts of Ranchi city.

While recalling the trauma of the past three years, she said she was third youngest among 10 children, including six sisters and four brothers of her poor farmer parents.

She said Kuldeep Sahu of a near-by village approached her parents and convinced them that she could earn a good salary by working in Delhi that could change the family’s fortunes.

“After initial reluctance, my father agreed and allowed Sahu to take me with him for the job. I know my father thought of betterment but he was not aware that it would land me in big trouble,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

She said for Rs 40,000, Sahu sold her to a Delhi slave agent, who in turn sent her to work as domestic help in a house in Pashchim Vihar.

She said she worked there for nine months before another slave agent Ved Prakash purchased her and sent her to work in another house. Subsequently, she was purchased four times more and forced to work for very low salaries before she decided to flee, she said.

Social activist Rita Singh said she and her organisation were trying to rope in police and other authorities to unearth the child trafficking and slavery racket with the help of the Ranchi girl. She said a little effort may rescue many more girls working as slaves in the national capital.

Moreover, it could also blow the lid off a big inter-state child trafficking racket, she added.