A desperate decision by their parents and a heartless act of a trafficker destroyed their childhood. Years later, they seized back their youth, braving hunger and the unknown in a two-day journey home.
On Tuesday, cousins Karthik (11) and Manikandan (13) were rescued by the police from Koyambedu Bus Stand, on their way home to Theni from Gujarat. Trapped in bonded labour for over three years in a pappad packaging unit in Junagadh, the children reportedly suffered physical abuse by the employer.
A few years ago, back home in Sivaram Nagar of Theni district, Karthik’s mother Santhi took Rs. 9,500 from a trafficker for sending him to Gujarat for work. “My husband made the decision because of poverty. After my husband’s untimely death, they did not permit my son to attend the funeral. They sent my son home only after 30 days and took him away for work again,” says Santhi.
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Santhi’s sister Vasanthi was also forced to send her son Manikandan as a bonded labourer. “I got Rs. 8000 from the agent. I now realise the decision is wrong. I want to educate my child,” says Vasanthi.
Manikandan and Karthik would begin packaging at 5 a.m. and work till midnight, receiving only two meals a day. “We did the work at a house. Many houses in the area used to employ children, mostly from Tamil Nadu, for packaging pappads. The owner used to pour hot oil on my hands whenever I was unable to work. We were not permitted to play,” says Manikandan. “Frequent visitors to the home used to talk about other children at work in other houses in the area. But, we did not see them,” says Karthik, who dropped out of school in Class III.
The cousins used to vie with dogs for space to sleep in the night, occasionally getting bitten by disturbed canines.
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Aspiring to become policemen after formal education, the cousins decided to leave the workplace on Sunday while the owner was away. Pocketing just Rs. 460 they got from the sale of the pappads, they reached Junagadh, took a train to Rajkot, and reached Ahmedabad. “After spending all the money, we were hungry. We boarded the train to Chennai without tickets. When we requested the conductor in Koyambedu for bus tickets to Theni, he informed the police,” says Karthik.
Indian Council for Child Welfare-Tamil Nadu Honorary Joint Secretary Girija Kumarbabu says the children would have been subjected to risk without such an effort by the police here. “The children will be produced before the Child Welfare Committee. We are also concerned about the 60 children trapped in bonded labour in Gujarat,” she says.
Two children from Theni, who were forced to work in a pappad making unit in Gujarat in horrible conditions, escaped amid great risk