Trigger warning: Mention of sexual abuse
Less than two weeks after reaching Kerala, an unfamiliar State where people spoke a language she did not know, Odisha native Rani* found herself climbing the locked gate of the house in Kochi she had come to work at. Help had at last reached the gate after many distress calls on the afternoon of October 16, when she was left alone in the house by the family she came to work for. A day earlier, at noon on October 15, Rani was sexually assaulted allegedly by the man of the house when his wife had gone out. The accused – a 75-year-old man with a high profile job – had allegedly spiked a glass of juice and made her drink it after before sexually assaulting her while she had passed out in her room.
When she awoke, she alerted a cousin, without fully knowing what happened to her. On the next day, when her employers left for Guruvayoor leaving her alone in the house, she was rescued, taken to the police, and made to undergo a medical examination that confirmed rape. Rani is now staying at a government shelter in Kochi.
The Maradu police have registered a case under Section 74 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) – assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty. At the time of filing the First Information Report (FIR), the result of the medical examination had not yet come. “The police said that sections of rape were later added and submitted to the court,” says Advocate Sandhya Raju, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Rights Research and Advocacy and represents the survivor as of now. Rani also gave her statement before a magistrate under section 183 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
The FIR names Sivaprasad, of Silverline Island in Vytila, as the accused. Rani, in her complaint, says that Sivaprasad had approached her when she was cleaning the upstairs hall of the house at around 11 in the noon on October 15, when his wife was not there. He allegedly forced her to drink a glass of juice, soon after which she began feeling faint. “He began hugging me and kissing me forcibly while I tried to push him off. I managed to run away to my room, but by then I was feeling very faint and passed out on my bed. I woke up around 12.30 pm and madam came back by 2 pm. I did not tell her about it. Sir had touched me inappropriately before too, in madam’s absence,” she writes in her complaint.
Rani informed her cousin, who works in another part of the city, about what happened. The cousin, through the help of others, alerted the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), a nonprofit organisation that works for the welfare of migrant labourers in India. The CMID in Kochi has a tie up with Gram Vikas, a nonprofit in Odisha, for looking into the issues of migrant workers travelling between the two states. “Through people in Gram Vikas, we reached out to the survivor, to find out her location. She did not know the name of the place but shot a photo from her window and sent it to us. We recognised the approximate place and one of our employees went to the location,” says Benoy Peter, executive director of the CMID.
Ayaz Anwar, the programme manager of the CMID, located the house from the outside, and reported it to the Maradu police station. The police sent a woman civil police officer with Ayaz and Vishnu of the CMID to go to the house. Rani had at first not responded to the phone calls, but when they called out her name, she came out through the back door. The gate, however, was locked from the outside.
“There was no one else in the house. We told her that we had come to rescue her, and she could pack her bag and come with us to the police station. She had looked very scared, but calmed down on seeing the woman police officer. She briefly told us what happened and had to climb over the gate to come out with her bag. However, she was afraid of going to the station, she said she just wanted to get away from the house and go to her cousin’s place,” Ayaz says.
While they were there, a couple from the neighbouring house began asking questions, casting aspersions on Rani, alleging that she was making up these stories, Ayaz says. “The woman of the house asked most of the questions, while her husband, a lawyer, quietly added that it did not seem possible that Sivaprasad would do such a thing. The woman then called Sivaprasad’s wife on the phone and told her what was going on. The family – Sivaprasad, his wife, their daughter and husband – had gone to Guruvayoor. The wife said on the phone that Rani had told her the previous day that she wanted to go home to see her unwell brother. We understood later that Rani had said that as an excuse to leave the house,” Ayaz says.
After Rani reached the police station, a female colleague of Ayaz, Hasna, came along to help her communicate. Rani knew Odia and Hindi, and Hasna helped translate what she was saying to Malayalam. “Interestingly, by the time we reached the station, the woman from the neighbourhood was already there, saying she knew the police officials there,” Ayaz notes.
From the station, Rani was taken for a medical examination at the taluk hospital. By the time they came back to register the case it was 1 am on October 17. By 4 am, she was taken to a shelter home, where she remains to date.
“It was after the medical examination report came that it was confirmed that she was sexually assaulted. And she had passed out by the time of the assault, but woke up without her clothes on her and a blanket covering her, feeling pain in her private parts,” says advocate Sandhya.
The CMID also looped in Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) - the trade union for women in the informal sector that also deals with migrant workers. “There is an agent nexus – vicious circles - that include neighbours or people from the neighbouring villages of these women who take them to employers, bargain for salary and get a commission. This woman (Rani) reached Kerala through an agent two weeks ago. This was her first job in Kerala,” says Sonia George, of SEWA.
What surprised them all was the laxity with which the police had handled the case after the initial proactivity. After registering the case post midnight in the early hours of October 17, the police have not arrested the accused for days, even after rape was confirmed. Sivaprasad, who has worked in senior positions in government institutions, is now in a powerful position in a private firm. It is suspected that his influence may have led to the delay in his arrest, giving him time to procure an anticipatory bail.
“It also shows the vulnerability of the migrant labourer population. Rani is a Class 6 dropout, she does not know the language or many people here. At least she is an adult. Many times, minors are attacked and these cases are simply buried. In Rani’s case, we were also able to constantly be in touch with her because she was alone in the house,” Benoy says.
There were other attempts to dissuade Rani from lodging the case or proceeding with the medical examination. Amith, the man she knew from her hometown and had arranged the job for her, was putting pressure on her to withdraw the complaint, Ayaz says.
Further trouble awaited Rani when her phone went missing at the shelter home. “We have arranged a second hand phone and a new SIM for her. We understand that she does not wish to go back to her home in Odisha. She has been forced to do domestic work since she was 12 years old by her stepmother. She wants to find a safe place to work in Kochi,” Benoy adds.
The State as well as all the stakeholders – the employers included – should be accountable for the issues of domestic workers, both Benoy and Sonia say. “To stop the abuse of minors, the State should take a stand that child labour would not be permitted. For the migrant domestic workers, there should be a system to be in touch with the woman protection officer of the district,” Benoy suggests.
Sonia says that a majority of the women who come for domestic work to Kerala from other states do not have records of their migration – neither in their home state or in Kerala. “It is high time that the government takes accountability of domestic workers who come to Kerala. This is an area where a home becomes a workplace, and the labour laws don’t cover that, since home does not qualify as an establishment. No one can complain if something happens inside the four walls of the house. It is difficult to change this, to get evidence of wrongdoing. In these cases, only trade unions and civil society organisations come to the support of the worker. The State should also be responsible. In Rani’s case, they should compensate for her loss and secure her future. The accused should be arrested as early as possible,” Sonia says.
*Name changed