Twelve year old Payal used to be a domestic worker in Delhi. A concerned adult living in the neighborhood where she worked called Butterflies Childline to report Payal’s plight. The neighbor explained that for several months she had heard Payal’s screams from the house. She eventually met Payal, who described the hardships she was facing at her employer’s residence. Payal was made to work for 12-14 hours a day under what she described as immense torture at the hands of her employer and she had not been paid her due salary for the past 7 months.
Butterflies Childline staff carried the rescue operation along with Lajpat Nagar Police Station officials and directly brought Payal to Butterflies Resilience Centre. A medical and legal checkup revealed physical injuries on Payal’s forehead and arms. Payal later described from she had come to Delhi from a small village called Peepa in West Bengal, where her father worked on a farm. Due to extreme poverty, she never went to school. Her father migrated to the city to work as a minimum wage laborer. He sent his daughter to secure employment as a domestic worker through a placement agency.
Payal appeared before the Child Welfare Committee, Nirmal Chhaya, on 28th July 2005 and as directed by the committee members, Butterflies lodged an FIR against the employer under the section 26 of JJ Act 2000. Payal is currently staying at the Delhi State Government’s Children’s Home for Girls.