After her father passed away, Malathy (name changed) and her mother were given shelter by her maternal uncle at his house in Tiruttani. After a while, her mother was shocked to find that the girl had been forced into a relationship by her brother-in-law while he was married to her sister.
Things went downhill for the then 13-year-old as she fell for her uncle and even agreed to ‘elope’ with him to Singapore. On Friday, as she looks at the print-out of her marks that read ‘421/500’, she smiles at how much life has changed in one year. “I’m going to be an engineer,” she chirps confidently.
“Her mother came to her senses and went to the police finally, and that is when we stepped in and made the rescue,” says Isabel R of MCCSS, in whose home Malathy resides. After the NGO’s team intervened, Malathy was separated from family and brought to the city. “She had this attitude of resisting us and kept wanting to go back to her Maama,” she adds. As she was exhibiting signs of a Stockholm syndrome-esque character, they put her with girls rescued from prostitution and counselled her.
After she lost a year, courtesy all the family drama, Malathy finally came around and agreed to be enrolled in a school nearby to clear her Class X exams.