A 16-year-old girl, who was allegedly forced to work for nearly 20 hours a day, burnt repeatedly with hot iron, and deprived of food for days, was rescued from a house in southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, police said on Saturday.
The girl was initially too frightened to speak before officials as she had allegedly been threatened with death if she disclosed the abuse. Following directions from the Kalkaji sub-divisional magistrate (SDM), a rescue operation was conducted by the Labour Department, Delhi Police and NGO representatives on November 3 and 4. The SDM ordered the Shaheen Bagh Police Station to register a case under the provisions of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
The Association for Voluntary Action approached them with a complaint, alleging that a girl was being employed as a labourer in the area, according to the police. During the operation, the girl, a resident of Shram Vihar Jhuggi in Shaheen Bagh, was rescued from a house in Abul Fazal Enclave-II, where she was allegedly employed by a woman, who was identified as Sadaf, the police said. The girl was also allegedly prevented from meeting her parents, who were allowed to speak to her over the phone only two or three times in nearly a year, according to the police.
She later narrated her ordeal before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
