Misery's children

A fortnight ago, an 11-year-old girl, Rajni, was murdered by her employer in the teeming New Delhi suburb of Lajpat Nagar. The woman of the house had walked into her bedroom and found the little girl putting on makeup, which was forbidden. Rajni was beaten so badly that she died, alone and a long way away from her poverty-stricken family in eastern India.

While the murder of a domestic servant is mercifully rare, mistreatment is something that I see among my neighbours every day.

Soon after I moved into Friends Colony West, a south Delhi suburb, I went for a morning walk through the neighbourhood. I saw many little boys washing cars. I realised that they were domestic servants, invariably known by the generic name Chotu (little one). It is a common syndrome. Poor rural families hand over their children to a middleman, who offers to take them to the big city for work and a better life.

It's estimated that almost half a million children under the age of 14 work as servants - cooking, cleaning, dusting and ironing - with no time off. Their childhood is spent in drudgery.

Some well-off families with young children are so desensitised - or inhuman - that they see no poignancy in their own children being washed, fed and looked after by a maid who is a child herself. I have seen families buy ice-creams for their children but not for the little boy servant with them.

Social worker Akash Kochar, who works with Prayas, a charitable organisation, said: 'They prefer children because they won't answer back. How can a 9-year-old argue with an adult or demand fair treatment or run away?'