‘Stringent rules to curb torture needed’

The minister has requested Shinde to create a “strong regulatory regime to deal with placement services,their heads who recruit large number of the poor from Jharkhand based on false promises… devising a strong deterrent regime to include financial and non-financial penalties for those who are found to be perpetrators of such violence against those most vulnerable — like illiterate maid servants. Ensuring that in cases of minors being hired/placed,stringent action is taken against the placement agency”.

“The recent report of a tribal domestic help from Jharkhand being subjected to inhuman cruelty and wounds inflicted with beastly ferocity in Vasant Kunj,is only one more in the growing statistic of this saga of exploitation,” Kumar wrote.

Stating how the girls were lured with the promise of a job,away from the lives of poverty they lead,he said,“What they actually settle for in many cases is a life of untold exploitation and misery.”

In his letter,the minister mentioned how the issue of employment of tribal youth in Delhi households in particular was raised by him in Parliament. “The government needs to take concrete action to deal with such cases of exploitation which are reccurring with alarming frequency,” the letter stated.

“I have had the occasion in the recent past of attending the funeral of a tribal girl from Jharkhand who even in death was being deprived of a suitable burial place… this is a telling commentary of how the poor do not have any solace either in life or in death,” the letter read.