The Hindu : New Delhi News : Speaking up for `missing women'

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Thursday, Mar 10, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Speaking up for `missing women'

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 9. Women activists in the Capital would have just found time to soak their feet in warm salt water after the hectic International Women's Day celebrations, but the "missing women'' of Orissa who remained largely ignored on March 8 seem to have found their voice and are now asking for some immediate attention.

Taking up the cause of women and their families who have come to the Capital in search of jobs as domestic helps and have hence gone "missing', the Justice and Peace Commission today said: "We have been alarmed at the rising number of girls who go `missing' in Delhi after several months of working for a series of employers. Their experience shows that many agents had given fake addresses and now remain hard to trace.''

The lucky few domestic helps who managed to escape, shared their stories at the Capital's Constitution Club where they had gathered to narrate similar tales of abuse, exploitation and violation of basic human rights.

Said Tuhami Kujhur, a 35-year-old mother of five who had come to the Capital in search of food and a job through a placement agency that came to her village scouting for domestic help. "I was given two `rotis' a day by my employer and made to sleep in the bathroom. I was shifted from house to house and at the last house where I worked I was beaten up badly. I now have pain in the ears,'' she said. Tuhami was rescued after she was `spotted' by her relatives who were at the placement office when she called there for help.

The story of 17-year-old Asha Tirki is no different. Asha was brought to Delhi by a relative who promised her a good job in the city, much like her sister. "I did not really know what my sister was doing or how her working conditions were. The house where I was placed as a domestic help, was more like a prison. I was beaten up for small mistakes, was not allowed to leave the house or even talk to my parents when they would call from home. One day I managed to run away and reached the house where my brother was staying and now I refuse to go back,'' said Asha.

The Domestic Workers Forum, Justice and Peace Commission, Delhi Archdiocese and All India Catholic Union along with the women workers today demanded that the Delhi police and Delhi Government appoint a nodal office to tackle the rising cases of torture and exploitation of tribal girls and women working in Delhi.

"There is an organised racket that is fast spreading, we have with us data of 220 placement agencies operating in the Capital alone that `pick up' girls from Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and bring them here. There are an estimated 85,000 to one lakh working girls and women in Delhi, most of them unmarried and in the12 to 25 years age group," said advocate Mary Scaria, of the Justice and Peace Commission.

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