Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Women rescued from slavery count their losses

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Anuradha Nagaraj and Roli Srivastava -


Five months into her pregnancy, Soniya was still carrying heavy sacks up steps at the rice mill in south India where she was forced to work to pay off a family debt. By the time she was rescued, her baby had died.


Soniya spent four years in debt bondage, the most prevalent form of slavery in India, to pay off a family loan of Rs 50,000 ($725).


Like many women in her situation, she had no access to healthcare. Her rescuers said she appeared malnourished, frail and on the point of collapse, had her hands wrapped around her stomach and refused to speak. “Health checks are not mandated after a rescue, but the lost expression in her eyes suggested that something was amiss,” said Megraj Kasim, the local officer in charge of rescue and rehabilitation of bonded workers.


“We rushed her to a hospital, but it was too late,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Vellore district in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.


A series of rescues this year have highlighted the plight of the hundreds of pregnant and lactating women working in brick kilns, rice mills and on farms across India, often to pay off debts they did not incur. “The women are silenced into submission by threats, which is why their trauma is often unheard,” said Helen Barnabas, a counsellor with the International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking charity.


“In almost every rescue, there is at least one pregnant woman or one nursing a newborn, who have been denied medical access, forced to work and gone through trauma that they are rarely able to articulate. The cruelty is unimaginable.” India’s labour ministry did not respond to emails or calls on the issue.


India identified more than 135,000 bonded workers in its 2011 census despite banning the practice in 1976.


It says more than 300,000 people have been pulled out of slavery since 1976 and has committed to rescue and rehabilitate more than 10 million bonded labourers by 2030.


Kasim said the testimonies of women who had lost their children were the toughest to record, but gave the “true picture of the extent of exploitation”. “The women don’t speak easily and we work very hard on gaining their trust,” he said.


“But when they trust you enough to speak, their accounts are heartbreaking. Even the toughest officials are moved by their suffering, especially if they lose a child.” Kasim has now mandated health checks in all rescues in his region, a move the Tamil Nadu government is looking to enforce across the state in the future. Barnabas said women from tribal areas were often told to treat themselves like their grandmothers did using traditional herbs, depriving them of access to modern medicine. — Thomson Reuters Foundation


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