RANIPET: The pain is palpable when Parvathi Ammal* tries to cover her face with her weary hands. The 37-year-old self-assured woman suddenly becomes uncomfortable as she doesn’t like talking about a past that has haunted her till this day. Her past tells the story of how she became a survivor of bonded labour. But today, she is a crusader who fights the scourge and helped rescue 59 bonded labourers.
Growing up, she didn’t even know she was a bonded labourer, and had simply accepted her fate. “All I knew then is that my father borrowed Rs 5,000 from his friend and ended up working under him for years,” Parvathi Ammal told TNIE. “When my father’s friend started a brick kiln, my family went to work there,” she explained.
While her family moved there, she wasn’t sent to school as her grandparents advised her parents against it, saying “Teachers beat children in schools.” This left her working for her parents since her childhood. Work became all she knew. Later, she went to work at a wood-cutting unit to compensate for the Rs 2,000 borrowed by her father-in-law for her marriage.
“My husband and I worked at the unit for a few years. After returning the amount, I wanted a small house and therefore got Rs 10,000 from the owner of another brick kiln,” Parvathi Ammal said. “We had three children and they were sent to live with my parents.”
However, while working at the brick kiln in 2008, an incident took place that shattered her inner peace and tranquility — the owner misbehaved with her. The mental turmoil was immense, and it was compounded by the fact she was unable to open up about the incident to her husband and relatives. But the incident made her muster the courage — which till then she never knew she had — to seek help. She spoke to her sister-in-law about the harassment, and through her, approached an NGO involved in rescuing bonded labourers.
After an inquiry, government officials, police, and the NGO rescued Parvathi Ammal and her husband. It took the couple seven years to obtain a release certificate, which came in 2015. During the seven years, the ghost of bonded labour continued to follow them, as the duo spent their life hiding from their ‘owner’, even as they ran a bangle shop.
The ordeal of bonded labour — and the life in hiding — steeled her resolve to fight back. She joined the Released Bonded Labourers Association (RBLA) in 2018, and now leads its rescue committee. Having freed herself from the cold clutches of modern slavery, she is now a saviour for many like her. Working closely with the State government and NGOs in search and rescue operations, she has so far helped free 59 bonded labourers. She organises cultural events and distributes pamphlets to residents to spread awareness about the bonded labour system and the need to abolish such practice.
Parvathi Ammal’s only grouse is that the wheels of justice turn very slowly against perpetrators of such injustice. M Raja, a Madras High Court lawyer who handles bonded labour cases, said a few years back, FIRs were not registered in many of these cases. Owners, despite having committed the heinous crime, walked free. Now, filing of bonded labour cases has actually gone up, which is a positive sign, the lawyer said.
For Parvathi Ammal though, the fight goes on. (*Name changed)