28th December1997

These kids become slaves in rich houses

Kandy: Devi and Ramani left their homes at a young age to work as domestics in Colombo and returned only in coffins.

They worked for many years in two separate households, being routinely sexually abused by their masters until they became pregnant.

The two died in the households where they worked and their fathers were asked to come and collect the bodies. Death, the parents were told, was a result of burns caused by the gas stove. The actual story: the chief householders, with the aid of other members of the family, had poured kerosene on them and set them ablaze, because they were pregnant.

"The two fathers told us they were not even allowed to open the coffins. The closed coffins were brought back to the estates and the victims cremated. The fathers who were each given a bottle of arrack and money, didn't question the employers believing what they said was the cause of death," said Menaka Kandasamy, a social worker and women's activist.

'The problem is one of ignorance and illiteracy", explained Kandasamy. "The parents of the two children didn't even know the name of the town where the victims worked, although they had been there a number of times".

These two harrowing incidents which occurred in 1995 and 1996 and went unreported to the police, are commonplace in Sri Lanka's plantation sector where children between 10-14 years are forced to work as servants in affluent households for economic and social reasons.

Parents in the plantations, send their children for such work in the belief that they will have food, clothes and some money to bring back home.

But these children work long hours-they are on call 24 hours a day-looking after children, their own age, carrying heavy loads from the market, cooking the family's food and working in the garden.

These domestics become slaves as soon as they enter a household. Paedophilia, rape, sexual harassment, assault and beatings, being burnt with hot oil or burning wood are part of their daily lives.

There are no official statistics on child labour in Sri Lanka. Unofficial figures vary from 100,000 to 500,000 children who are illegally employed, but government officials say this number is exaggerated.

A foreign aid worker paints a grim picture of children in the plantation sector.

"They are slaves at home and outside. They have no rights, no freedom. Education is a luxury, work is compulsory. Incest is accepted," the aid worker, who ran a health clinic for 14 months on a tea plantation said.

The problem goes back to the 1860s when the British, colonial rulers of Sri Lanka then called Ceylon, sought cheap labour from across the Palk Straits which separates the island nation from India.

Most children were also compelled to work in the homes of the superintendents or managers of estates as houseboys or housegirls. Often children were sent out of the plantations to work in the homes of relatives of the estate management, who lived in Colombo or other far away places.

That practice became a new industry with agents finding employment for plantation children in homes in the capital, at low wages. In return, the agents received a fat commission.

Women's activist, Kandasamy believes that it would take a long time for the conditions of children to improve on the estate. "Governments and estate managements move slowly in this regard. Very few estates, other than the ones run by top private managements, spend on social welfare like housing, education, health, etc.," she said.

Kandasamy, women's coordinator at the Institute of Social Development (ISD) based in the central hill town of Kandy, said that after the case of the two girl-servants who died in workplaces as a result of abuse by employers, the ISD was trying to educate young girls of their rights.

"We try to get details of their workplace, give them literacy classes and generally raise their level of knowledge and awareness," she said, adding this kind of employment couldn't be stopped because it was part of the social fabric.

The story of Ms. K

Young planta tion women are also seeking employment as housemaids in the Middle East now, but the exploitation even extends there. Ms K, a 19-year old who worked as a servant in a Colombo household, had been told by her employer-couple that she could earn much more in the Middle East. Like many in the plantations, Ms K did not have an identity card or a passport.

So her 'kind' employers obtained a forged passport for her and asked her to send her wages to them to be put in a bank which Ms K did regularly.

After two years in the Middle East, Ms K returned with 100,000 rupees as the balance of her wages. This cheque too was taken by her Colombo employers.

When she went to the bank to check on her account, she discovered to her dismay that not one rupee of her hard-earned money was deposited on her behalf. Realising she had been cheated, she returned to the estate utterly depressed and appealed to local women leaders.

But there was little that could be done. Ms K was illiterate and didn't have any documents to prove her income. Furthermore she had gone abroad on a forged passport - which she didn't know - and such an offence carries a six-month jail sentence.

Why do they go?

Apart from poverty, family tensions also compel parents to send their children out of the estate. Some children are sent away by their fathers to prevent family squabbles.

"I had no option but to send her somewhere so that she will remain under strict supervision all the time and learn discipline. When I tried to discipline her she found fault with me since I am her stepmother", one woman, who had constant quarrels with her stepdaughter, was quoted as telling a social worker. "If she stayed on at home she would have destroyed the relationship in the neighbourhood, so we had to do it", she said.

Researcher Chandra Kumaraswamy said that parents' attitudes and habits had played a significant role in the deterioration of family relationships on the estate. Most fathers were alcoholics and mothers were addicted to betel-chewing while little was done for the children's welfare. Alcohol had completely changed the atmosphere in the household, mounting tension and fear have destroyed the minds of children, he said in a report on child labour.

"This turned to hatred and subsequently children became aggressive and independent in their own way. As a result many children had gone in search of work and found employment as domestic servants and helpmates in hospitals and other businesses. They wanted to escape from the family crisis and tension," Kumaraswamy noted, in a study done for Plan International, a non-governmental agency.

He said that the continued economic and social marginalisation of the plantation community is depriving far larger numbers of children, of the kind of childhood "which would enable them to become part of tomorrow's solutions rather than tomorrow's problems."

"Through marginalisation, plantation children have become destitute and desperate. And when the destitute and desperate are very young, knowing far more about the world than their parents did and expecting more from it, they inevitably act independently. This in turn affects the progress of the entire society and country," Kumaraswamy observed.

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