Except what’s to be done when the child is employed by the doctors themselves? The story of a thirteen year-old girl locked in an apartment while her doctor employers went on holiday to Thailand has rippled across the globe from India to New York. The girl’s screams were heard by a neighbour who alerted the police.
The married couple marked containers threatening the girls with punishment if she ate food and monitored her movement around their house through CCTV. There were originally allegations that he girl was sold into child labour by her uncle but the girl’s mother has since denied this.
It’s such a depressing state of affairs when even education does not protect children from employment and even inflicts harsher conditions upon them. The media in Delhi has picked up on this story and has been scathing of the doctor couple involved who have since been arrested and charged. Employing child labour is against the law in India but it is difficult to apply the law since by their very nature they are in private homes. Hopefully the shame alone may prevent this from happening to other children – the couple had a very public arrest outside a Delhi shopping mall and their photo has been published widely.
Bubbly
The Chatterjis Blog 