By Soumi Das

On 19 July 2004, a 10-year-old girl from Gumla was found crying by the roadside in New Delhi's Kalkaji area. She was too traumatised to speak coherently. A woman, who works with the Indian Social Institute, Renuka, spotted her and took her home. The girl, Asha Topno, narrated an
all-too-familiar tale of physical and mental abuse. She was made to work through the day till late at night, given little food and thrashed, till one day she fled. Luckily, Asha was rescued and brought to Chetanalaya, on Bhai Vir Singh Marg, where Sister Pratiti of the National Domestic Workers' Forum gave her shelter and care. The forum, through its Ranchi wing at Ursuline Girls' School, would now try to trace her family in Gumla.

Few are as lucky
Thousands of girls from Jharkhand's towns and villages, lured by the prospect of decent earning, find themselves in Delhi each year. The system operates through a well-oiled and efficient network of touts and agents, who bring the girls to the so-called placement agencies."There are more than 500 such agencies spread all over New Delhi today and there are tribal girls from Jharkhand in almost every middle and upper-middle class home from South extension to Defence colony to Vasant Vihar to Pritampura," says Sister Pratiti of Chetanalaya, National Domestic Workers' Forum (NDWF) with centres in Mumbai and Ranchi.

Though there has never been a comprehensive survey, NGOs like Chetanalaya, Nirmala Niketan and the Indian Social Institute, which are trying to organise domestic help in New Delhi and fighting for their rights, estimate that their number could be anywhere between 80,000 to a lakh.

The sheer number of such placement agencies is mind-boggling. Punjabi Bagh, in West Delhi alone, has more than fifty agencies running in small tenements in the densely populated Lal Quarter. These are run either by tribal youths or locals who hire tribals both in villages and in New Delhi to ensure a steady supply. Typically, an agent in a village in Gumla or Simdega brings the girl to Ranchi from where they are taken to Delhi by an another agent and "supplied" to placement agencies. These agencies have a few tiny rooms or cubicles where the girls are housed till they get a job. Besides, the placement agency charges the girls their first salary for travel and other incidental expenses.

Many have Christian names complete with pictures of Jesus Christ, a cross or Mother Teresa on their signboards and visiting cards. Since more than 90 per cent of the girls who go to New Delhi are tribal Christians, such iconography serves a distinct purpose. Many girls and their families are duped and go to Delhi thinking they'll be working through a "convent" or a Church-based organisation.

Some placement agencies with Christian names:

• Mother Teresa Personnel Placement Services (90-A, Lal Quarter, West Avenue, Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi 26)
• St Joseph's Housekeeping Centre run by Patras Ekka (registration number 2351, house
  number T265, C/9A Chirag Delhi, near Bhagwati tent house)
• St Xavier Domestic Welfare Centre, run by Benedicta Tete and Jerry (registration number 1378, street number 14, 85, Kilokari village, Maharani Bagh, New Delhi 110014)
• Sister Joshlin Service (N-92, Pratap Market, Munirka, New Delhi 110067
• Saint Mary's Service Centre (14-A, Razapur, Nizamuddin east, New Delhi-13)
• Jesus & Mary Placement run by Paul Minj (666/667Bhola nagar, Bapu Park, Kotlamubarakpur, New Delhi-110003)
• Marshal Convent & Social Welfare (M 96-98-99, Rajeev Gandhi Market, Shakurpur, Delhi-34)
• Sant Anna Placement Services, B-105, S Cinema Road, near Agarwal sweets, Shakurpur,
  Delhi)
• Mission Welfare Society (M-208, JJ Colony, Shakurpur, near Britannia Chowk)

Non-tribal owners who run agencies with tribal cards:

• Toppo Placement (G-109, Bobby Music Centre, Shakarpur, New Delhi)
• Tribal Domestic Workers' Fellowship (359/254, Saidulajab, Anupam apartments, New Delhi-30)
• Chhotanagpur Working Women's Forum (Plot number-1, Dilli Haat, West Kidwainagar, New Delhi)
• Adivasi Samajik Evam Sankritik Sangh (A-7, Bapu Park, Kotlamubarakpur, New
  Delhi-110003)
• Sarna Placement Service (18, Aliganj, Kotlamurakpur, New Delhi-110003)
• New Tribal Park Placement (Uday Chand Marg, Kotlamubarakpur, New Delhi 110003)

Bound by contract
BRG Manpower is among the well-established placement services in Punjabi Bagh. Like others, it boasts of a "hostel". Ranjit and Bahan, the two youths who claim to be its "owners" say, "We charge the first month's salary from the girl (varying between Rs 1000-2000) and a registration fee of Rs 3000
from the employer." This means each girl fetches the agency at least Rs 5,000. Once girls are brought to the placement agency, they are made to sign a "contract" that binds them for a minimum of 11 months without break. If it is broken, the girl has to forgo three-month salary to the agency.

It is this condition that keeps the girls chained even to abusive employers, says Subhash Bhatnagar, lawyer and social activist."The problem is far too complex and the nexus involves the local police as
well who provide protection to agencies, as the 'turn-over' from the 'industry' is at least Rs 150 crore per month.," says Bhatnagar, one of the founding members of, Nirmala Niketan, in Pritampura.

More often than not, a representative of the placement agency collects the girl's pay each month, which they claim is given to the girl when she wishes to return home. In some cases, the girls are allowed to keep their own pay provided their first pay is paid to the agency as commission.

Help for needy women
Philomena, a former domestic help from Gumla, is a volunteer with the NDWF. "It's very difficult to get authentic information. Many girls are minors. In the records the agencies write false ages or names," she says. The touts threaten and abuse the girls with only a rare few functioning honestly. However, Michael Dungdung, Deenbandhu Tirkey and Birsius Dungdung, who run Saint Monica Placement Services argue they're in the business only to help needy women with no avenues of employment.

Meena, (name changed on request) who had come to Delhi 10 years ago, works at the placement agency. "I had come here through the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, a convent. But later, I found the nuns uncooperative and authoritarian. They offer shelter to tribal girls, train them in household chores till they find a job. But at times, they throw them out if the girls question or disobey them."

Meena had worked for around three years as a domestic help before she was sent back to her village in Jharkhand to get married. " My fiancé refused to marry me and I had to return to Delhi," she says. But the nuns refused to give her shelter at the Yuvati Seva Sadan (an NGO that is run by the Sisters of Mary Immaculate). Instead of working as a domestic help, she started working for the Saint Monica Placement Agency.

Money and marraige
According to noted women's activist, Dr Rose Kerketta, based in Ranchi, the question of mass-scale migration is not new to the region. "As part of the Jharkhand Mahila Mukti Samiti, I had raised the issue in 1986 linking the problem of women's migration with their absence of land and property rights.
As tribal women have no right to property, they're dependent on male members of the family", she says.

Tribal leaders believed the solution to all problems was a separate state. Yet, migration has only increased after Jharkhand was formed. "In tribal families the burden of providing for the family rests with the woman. The girl might be sending her income back home, but it's misutilised. If men don't work, poverty will only increase," adds Kerketta.

There's another dimension to the problem. Not all girls who migrate to work as domestic helps come from impoverished families. Teacher, researcher and women's activist Malancha Ghosh, of the Mahila Utpidan Virodhi Evam Vikas Samiti, says, "Many girls wish to travel and visit new cities. It's a very
natural human urge. Marriage becomes a problem for migrants. In tribal families, the parents of the girl do not look for a proposal. So if she goes to work in the city, prospective grooms stop coming with proposals." Tribal institutions, like the Dhumkuria, are also dying out, which gave an opportunity to young boys and girls to meet.

Working in the city for young girls is an escape route from the exploitation they face at home. "A tribal girl has a heavy burden of domestic responsibility and no rights. If she goes to Delhi to work, she does not have to work in the fields or fetch water and firewood," says Ghosh.

Time to specialise?
But Delhi might soon reach a "saturation point" feels Louis Prakash, Director, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi. The absence of skill training among tribal girls is a threat to their future employment opportunities, he says. "Today there are five lakh domestic workers in Delhi. With girls from Andhra Pradesh prepared to work for less, the tribal girls may be forced to accept lower wages. Unless they are given specialised training, their bargaining power will decline.Then where will these girls go?" asks Prakash.

The author is working on a media fellowship from the National Foundation of India, New Delhi. She is also a member of the NWMI network.

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