MUMBAI: No underclothes. Drinking water from a tank in the toilet. Skin
infection. Torn clothes and no shoes. Welcome to the Children’s Home at Dongri,
where rescued child labourers meet runaway kids and juvenile offenders. TOI
carried a front-page picture on May 10 of three minor girls who had been rescued
from a house in Malwani. Orphans, the three sisters-Laxmi, Saraswati and Devi
Pradhan-had been forced to work in a shack by their neighbour, E Radhamani, a
known anti-social element. The girls were rescued by the state labour
commissioner’s office and the police and moved to Dongri.
The girls say it has been like going from the frying pan into the fire. The
stories emerging out of the home, which houses 500 children, are shocking. TOI
sneaked inside the walled institution a number of times and taped the
testimonies of the girls we had helped rescue. This is what we found.
Children, including girls between the ages of 14 and 16, are not given any
undergarments and those given them by parents or well-wishers are taken away.
“They are afraid we will hide chits in our underclothes and pass them on to
outsiders,” said one girl. Another said the children were made to drink water
from a tank inside the lavatory. If a child demurs, she is told, “This will make
you strong.”
The food is of poor quality, the portions meagre. “There are even worms in the
food,” said one child. Some boys told us that they were made to cook the food
and if it didn’t turn out well, they could even be beaten.
Although many of the children have entered the home with an extra pair of
clothes, these are soon taken away. We saw the girls in old, torn clothes
walking barefoot on the hard ground despite the scorching mid-day sun.
Soap is in short supply and is usually stolen. “So, we end up bathing without it
and often a group of us has to bathe together,” a girl said.
The youngest of the three “rescued” girls, Devi, has developed a glandular
swelling behind her right ear. The sisters suffer from skin infections. Having a
middle-class background, they cannot believe that they have been housed with
delinquents and mentally unstable children. “Achchhi ladkiyaan yahaan aati hain
aur unki life barbaad ho jaati hai,” one of them told us.