Prison of promise

By Rakhi Chakrabarty
Call it irony. Old, poor parents send their young daughters to work in spinning mills so they make some money and can be married off. But the girls get trapped in a vicious circle of exploitation and abuse. Some of them never return home. The scheme is called Sumangali, the Tamil word for a happily married woman. But for many, it's a nightmare which often ends in death.
Rajamma of Ayalur lost her daughter to Sumangali , a system of forced labour of unmarried girls in spinning mills of Tamil Nadu. Unmarried girls between 13-18 years are employed on a three-year contract by the mills. At the end, they are supposed to get Rs 30,000-50 ,000, ostensibly for their marriage, says J John, executive director of Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), which has conducted a survey on Sumangalis. This sum is called 'mercy money' . But there are numerous cases of mill owners refusing to pay the promised sum. "Generally, their services are terminated on some petty issue just before the end of the contract period. The girls are then not paid any money," says Sindhu Menon, who first exposed the racket in an article, "Sumangali: A new form of bondage in Tamil Nadu" , in Labour File, a journal published from Delhi.
The girls' plight begins soon after they are spotted by agents who move around in the poor pockets, looking for people desperate for money for their daughter's marriage. The mills, mostly located in Tirupur and Coimbatore, pay the agents Rs 1,000-Rs 2,000 for each girl. Menon says the girls end up in a prison-like situation. They have to work day and night, suffer verbal abuse and torture.They can't go home and must live in the mill hostel. "They are confined in the mill during the contract period. They can't go out or meet anybody except their parents occasionally," says Pallavi Mansingh, CEC programme manager. Selvi in Palladam told CEC, "Around 500 young girls like me work in the mill. The mill hostel had 60 rooms. About 10-12 workers shared a room. For 268 workers, there were just six toilets and bathrooms."