A 16-year-old girl was rescued from a house in southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh after she allegedly faced extreme working hours, physical abuse, food and water deprivation and isolation from her parents while employed as a domestic help, police said on Saturday.
The girl was found at a house in Abul Fazal Enclave-II, where she had allegedly been kept away from her family for nearly a year. Police said an NGO approached them with a complaint that a girl was being employed as a labourer in the area. Acting on directions from the Kalkaji sub-divisional magistrate, the Labour Department, Delhi Police and NGO representatives conducted the rescue operation on November 3 and 4.
According to the girl’s statement, she was made to work from 6am until 2am, performing tasks including sweeping, mopping, washing utensils and cleaning the house. She said she was usually given tea at around 11am and was often served leftover food. She also alleged that her employer, identified by police as a woman named Sadaf, repeatedly burnt her back, hands and hips with a hot iron and wounded her with a heated knife.
The NGO said officials found several injuries and old scars on the girl’s body, including burn marks across her back and deep wounds on her head. The girl allegedly told authorities that she was once denied food and water for three days and beaten for minor mistakes. Instead of being taken to a doctor, she said, her employer gave her medicines bought from a medical store.
Police also said the girl had allegedly been prevented from meeting her parents. She was allowed to speak to them by phone only two or three times during the nearly one-year period, according to the report. The NGO claimed that her face was covered during those calls so her parents could not see the injuries.
The girl was initially too frightened to speak before officials, having allegedly been threatened with death if she disclosed the abuse. She later recounted her experience before the Child Welfare Committee. Her statement was recorded before a magistrate, after which she was produced before the committee, which directed that she be admitted to AIIMS for medical treatment.
The rescue brings together several institutional responsibilities that are often divided across Delhi’s child-protection and labour-enforcement systems. The SDM directed the Shaheen Bagh police station to register a case under provisions of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
No arrests had been made when the report was published. The NGO said another woman had placed the girl in the household and that she had been paid only Rs 18,000 for nearly a year of work. The girl told the Child Welfare Committee that she wanted to resume her studies and become a teacher.
