Overworked, underpaid, abused: The chilling tales of torture of Indian domestic help

Seema Patra, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Jharkhand — now suspended from the party — has been arrested today after allegations of torturing and mistreating her domestic help emerged.

The entire controversy emerged when a video of the domestic help narrating her ordeal went viral on social media. In the video, the help, identified as Sunita, is seen sitting on a hospital bed with wounds dotting her face and body. The 29-year-old says in the video that she was working with the Patra family for the past 10 years during which she was tortured and beaten with rods and an iron pan.

She goes on to add that she was confined in a room for several days without food or water recently after she insisted on going back home. Moreover, she claims she was forced to lick her urine from the floor.

The survivor also says that “it was only because of” Seema Patra’s son, Ayushman, that she is alive.

As per an ANI news report, Patra — who was BJP’s national executive member in Jharkhand and also a member of the National Working Committee of BJP’s Mahila Morcha — alleged that she has been falsely implicated in the case.

#WATCH | Ranchi, Jharkhand: "These are false allegations, politically motivated allegations. I have been implicated," says suspended BJP leader and wife of an ex-IAS officer, Seema Patra who has been accused of torturing her domestic help.

She has been arrested by the Police. pic.twitter.com/9PRSiBm0fO

— ANI (@ANI) August 31, 2022

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However, this is not the first case of torture and mistreatment of domestic help. Abuse, mental, physical or sexual, of these employees is not uncommon and in most cases, they continue to suffer silently in upscale and posh areas, as they have nowhere to go and or no one to seek help from.

Himanshu Bhatia case

In 2017, Indian-American CEO Himanshu Bhatia made headlines across the world when she was ordered to pay $135,000 to her former domestic help after an investigation revealed that the help was grossly underpaid and mistreated.

As per the investigation, Himanshu Bhatia, CEO of Rose International and IT Staffing, paid Sheela Ningwal, her domestic help, a fixed amount of $400, much lower than the minimum wage in the United States.

The help was also subjected to physical and verbal abuse. Ningwal was forced to sleep in the garage on a carpet alongside Bhatia’s dogs when she was ill and was left without food for days when Bhatia left for long holidays.

Additionally, Bhatia confiscated Ningwal’s passport, restricting her movement and only handed her the passport when she was needed at her Miami penthouse.

The investigation also revealed that Bhatia had terminated Ningwal in December 2014 after catching her researching the topic of “labour laws” online.

Devyani Khobragade incident

Devyani Khobragade, a 1999-batch Indian Foreign Service officer was arrested on 12 December 2013, in the United States when she was India’s Deputy Consul-General in New York on visa fraud charges and for allegedly providing false declarations in a visa application for her maid. She later was released on a $250,000 bond.

Khobragade was indicted for fraud and making false statements about the salary and employment terms of Sangeeta Richard, the domestic help she had got from India.

Sangeeta Richard’s husband Philip alleged that his wife was made to work from 6 am to 11 pm. Even on Sundays, which would have been her weekly off according to her contract, she had to work from morning until late in the night, excluding for two hours when she attended church.

The incident led to a diplomatic face-off between India and the US. In India, there was outrage at the fact that Khobragade was arrested from her daughter’s Manhattan school and strip-searched.

BSP MP murders house help

In November 2013, 35-year-old domestic help, Rakhi, was found dead with grievous injury marks at BSP MP Dhananjay Singh’s bungalow in New Delhi’s South Avenue. Investigations revealed that for three days Rakhi had been mercilessly assaulted with iron rods by the lawmaker and his wife.

Both were arrested for the heinous crime and charged for murder and destroying evidence.

Air India hostess tortures underage help

Before the Devyani Khobragade fiasco and the BSP MP’s cases was the case of a 12-year-old domestic help accusing her employer, an Air India stewardess, of confining and torturing her.

The girl from Senapati district in Manipur had revealed in October 2013 to the police that she was assaulted with a belt and that her employer used to scare her with a dog. She claimed that her employer would slap her, even slam her head against the wall if she found her asleep or resting.

Ambassador Prabhu Dayal’s incident

Back in 2011, the Indian Consul General in New York, Prabhu Dayal, was slapped with a sexual harassment accusation by his domestic help Santosh Bhardwaj.

Dayal had rubbished the charges levelled against him saying they were “complete nonsense”.”These are mischievous and malicious lies,” he was quoted as saying.

Bhardwaj, 45 had filed a forced labour-suit against Dayal accusing him of treating her as a slave and making sexual advances.

However, Bhardwaj had later dropped charges of sexual harassment and that she had to sleep on “a mattress on the floor in a small storage room” against the Indian envoy in an amended complaint.

Siliguri domestic help ‘beaten’ by Delhi employers

Prior to the Jharkhand incident, the harassment meted out to domestic help was in the spotlight in May when a 48-year-old woman from Siliguri found herself in hospital, ‘hardly being able to walk’ after her employers from Delhi’s Rajouri Garden allegedly thrashed her and chopped of her hair.

As per a report published in The Print, the help was brought to hospital by the owner of the domestic help employment agency from where she had been hired.

Her medical report, accessed by The Print had revealed that the 48-year-old had multiple contusions, including near her eyes, head trauma, injuries in her limbs and abdomen and multiple healed wounds on her hands.

With inputs from agencies

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