Date:17/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/17/stories/2008031758450400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A tale of confidence overcoming odds

R. Sujatha

CHENNAI: She is a mere slip of a girl, but has her wits about her. The confidence of 10-year-old Lavanya, who ran away from the house where she was working as domestic help, is heartening.

Her parents, Yadagiri and Narasamma, are construction labourers in Kavali, a small town near Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. On a friend’s advice they sent Lavanya to a Telugu family in West Tambaram for a payment of Rs. 6,000 a year.

Lavanya’s day began at 6 a.m. She washed vessels, the bathroom, ran errands and maintained the house, besides taking care of two young boys. Her father occasionally visited her, but she did not tell him that of late, her employers had been beating her.

“I have seen my father only five times in these two years. When my father brought me here, he told me that my sister was also working here. I have not seen her. My other sister is also working, but I don’t know where,” said Lavanya, who can speak a little Tamil.

During her tenure as domestic help, she visited her parents for two days. “My father told me that he would take me home after ‘Sivarathri.’ As he did not come, I decided to leave,” she said.

Lavanya used the money she had received as tip from visitors to the house to buy a train ticket from Tambaram to Beach. At the Beach station, she bought a ticket to Nellore. “An akka told me that I had to go back some distance and get off at another station.” She made her way to the Central Station where she asked a policeman about the train to Nellore.

“He told me to wait and that was when I met the man,” the child said looking at a staff member of ‘Karunalaya,’ which works with street children. Lavanya, who said she had studied up to class III, can write her name and her brother’s name in Telugu. As her father was addicted to alcohol, she did not have the courage to fight the decision, she recalled.

Karunalaya director Paul Sundar Singh said, “It is a case of bonded labour. The recent amendment to the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act prohibits domestic child labour also. We will produce her before the child welfare committee and press for compensation. It may take time, but we will ensure she returns home and to school.”