New Delhi: A teen domestic worker was allegedly beaten with rods and subjected to burns by her employer in Ghaziabad. The girl who managed to escape from the house of her employer on the eve of Holi is undergoing treatment for injuries at a Ghaziabad hospital. Police have registered an FIR in the case.
The girl came to the city around a year ago from Siliguri in West Bengal.A relative had got her a job as a domestic worker in the house of Reema Sharma, a single mother, in Ghaziabad’s Vasundhra. “My mother is a labourer in a tea garden and the only one with an income. I wasn’t attending school, so my family and I decided it would be best if I worked in the city and contributed to the family finances,” said the 17-year-old girl.
The torture started soon after, she alleged. “My employer beat me with rods and made me work from 6am to two at night. Once she poured boiling water on my leg when I couldn’t finish a task,” the teenager said, showing scald marks on her left leg and a swollen right ear on Tuesday. She couldn’t tell her parents about this because she did not have a phone.
“Once, when my employer let me speak to my mother on her phone, I tried telling my mother about my ordeal. That night, I was mercilessly beaten for trying to inform my mother about my state,” claimed the girl, whose body showed numerous injury marks.
On March 24, her employer allegedly beat her mercilessly over household chores. “I somehow mustered courage and escaped,” the traumatised girl said. She hid herself under the stairs of the building all night. In the wee hours the next morning, the colony security guard noticed her and alerted the housing society secretary, who contacted Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a child’s rights NGO.
BBA took the girl to the hospital, where she is undergoing treatment. Police have filed an FIR against Sharma. Unable to speak properly due to injuries and seeking justice, the girl said, “I want my employer to be punished in the same way she punished me.”
Manish Sharma, director, BBA, said, “As if stripping them of their childhood isn’t enough, girls brought from distant places from vulnerable families are tortured, abused and made to live in horrifying conditions. We need stricter laws and monitoring of placement agencies if we want to save our children from such abuses. Also, if all the residents’ welfare associations across India become as proactive as the RWA in this case, child labour and trafficking can be checked.”
The girl came to the city around a year ago from Siliguri in West Bengal.A relative had got her a job as a domestic worker in the house of Reema Sharma, a single mother, in Ghaziabad’s Vasundhra. “My mother is a labourer in a tea garden and the only one with an income. I wasn’t attending school, so my family and I decided it would be best if I worked in the city and contributed to the family finances,” said the 17-year-old girl.
The torture started soon after, she alleged. “My employer beat me with rods and made me work from 6am to two at night. Once she poured boiling water on my leg when I couldn’t finish a task,” the teenager said, showing scald marks on her left leg and a swollen right ear on Tuesday. She couldn’t tell her parents about this because she did not have a phone.
“Once, when my employer let me speak to my mother on her phone, I tried telling my mother about my ordeal. That night, I was mercilessly beaten for trying to inform my mother about my state,” claimed the girl, whose body showed numerous injury marks.
On March 24, her employer allegedly beat her mercilessly over household chores. “I somehow mustered courage and escaped,” the traumatised girl said. She hid herself under the stairs of the building all night. In the wee hours the next morning, the colony security guard noticed her and alerted the housing society secretary, who contacted Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a child’s rights NGO.
BBA took the girl to the hospital, where she is undergoing treatment. Police have filed an FIR against Sharma. Unable to speak properly due to injuries and seeking justice, the girl said, “I want my employer to be punished in the same way she punished me.”
Manish Sharma, director, BBA, said, “As if stripping them of their childhood isn’t enough, girls brought from distant places from vulnerable families are tortured, abused and made to live in horrifying conditions. We need stricter laws and monitoring of placement agencies if we want to save our children from such abuses. Also, if all the residents’ welfare associations across India become as proactive as the RWA in this case, child labour and trafficking can be checked.”