CHENNAI: Thirty-eight year old Muthu lives in a thatched hut that he shares with his daughter’s family. Work is unpredictable and food is just enough. But he has never been happier. Muthu and his wife Deepa (35) live in Kavithandalam, a village 8 kilometres from Chengalpattu. After eight years of bonded labour, the couple along with their two children were rescued from a woodcutting unit in Thirumudivakkam near Chromepet in March this year. Ahead of World Human Rights Day on Monday, the family tells their story in the hope that others like them would find the courage to leave.
“I went initially because I didn’t get much work here. My brother introduced me to the unit,” said Muthu. In exchange for a loan of Rs 15,000 that Muthu borrowed from the owner of the unit, Shanmugam, the couple agreed to work in bondage. After working for eight years, Shanmugam said they had merely settled Rs 5,000 of the total sum. Shanmugam was arrested after the rescue.Their daughter Priya, their eldest, was 11 when the couple left their children to work at the unit eight years ago. Their son Manigandan was 9 and their youngest, Rajathi, was 7. Priya and Manigandan were sent to live with their grandmother and Rajathi, with another relative.
“My grandmother would go to work as a domestic help early. I did not know to braid my hair for school, I did not know to pack lunch. Going to school was agony,” said Priya, now 19 years old and married.
So, she decided to drop out of school and join her parents at the woodcutting unit. Her brother followed suit. “As soon as I joined there, I knew it was a bad decision. I should have stayed in school,” she said.
Long work hours
Their work would begin at 6 am and go on until 6pm — sometimes extending to 9 or 10pm. After work, they stayed at an unfinished, abandoned building on the premises with six others - mostly members of their extended family. The four of them together would get `200-500 a week in total, after deductions towards their loan. With this they were able to afford only two meals a day.
“He told us that in eight years, we had only settled Rs 5,000 after all that work. Every time we begged him to be left alone, he would tell us that we had to pay Rs 40,000, four times the remaining Rs 10,000 that we owed him,” said Muthu. “As if this wasn’t enough, the man, a father of three children, would ask Priya’s hand in marriage in return for him waiving off our debt. She was 17 at that time.”
If not for the rescue, his son would have inherited the debt and carried on the heinous tradition. Their time at the unit was fraught with bad memories. One, however, is as fresh as ever. It was during the floods of 2015 when the water rose until the second floor of the dilapidated building that they stayed in.
“Our owner left without us. There was no way to contact him since the house he lived in and ours were divided by a stream of water,” said Deepa. “The stream brought with it metal scraps and other things, which we collected with our children. We then sold it for `100 to a neighbouring scrap dealer and used the money to get bus tickets,” she said.
Five days later, Shanmugam came looking for them. “He said he thought we were all dead. Now that he found out that we weren’t, he wanted us to come back,” said Deepa.
They went back and worked, until they were rescued in an operation led by the Released Bonded Labour Association (RBLA) and the Revenue Divisional Officer of Chengalpattu in March.Today Muthu and Deepa are a relieved couple. “Until last month, I worked as a domestic help, getting a salary of Rs 6,000. With the money that my husband and son make from cutting wood for local work, we now have enough to get by,” said Deepa.
Strange pattern
A Sampath, a field worker for the International Justice Mission (IJM), who was also a part of the Muthu-Deepa rescue operation, found that there was a strange pattern in these rescues. “The families would often say that they don’t want to betray the people who gave them work and refuse to divulge details. We have to cajole it out of them, making them understand that what they did to them was wrong.”
In India, bonded labour is an issue rooted in caste, especially in states like Odisha, said Kuralamuthan T, Government relations department, International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking organisation.
The Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act, 1976, while chalking out a clear course of action for the state machinery once a complaint is filed, under sections 10,11 and 12 of the Act, fails to address the responsibilities of the system to protect vulnerable sections even in cases when they are not in a position to file a complaint.
Although by various interpretations, the Supreme Court and High Courts have tightened some of the gaps in the Act, Kuralamuthan said that the proposed anti-trafficking bill will further help the cause. “The Bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha and we expect it to be passed in the winter session of the parliament,” he said.