Broker made Rs 4,000, says abused child maid

Broker made Rs 4,000, says abused child maid
TNN

PANAJI: The grandmother of the minor girl employed as a maid at the Pednekar residence—where the 10-year-old was allegedly abused and burnt—was paid Rs 800 to send her to work. The middleman, a resident of Panaji, received Rs 4,000. This was revealed by the girl to the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR).

In her statement to the police and the GSCPCR, the minor, who is now recuperating at Goa Medical College and Hospital, said that a few months after her father died in 2008, she started living with her grandparents. One day a neighbour approached her grandmother with an offer for the girl to work as a maid. She first worked at a house in Panaji and later at the Pednekar household in Porvorim.

“My grandmother told me that I could go to work at this place. Then I was sent to work at a place in Panaji. It was from this place that Shubam (Pednekar) came and picked me up and took me to his residence,” the minor said. She also said that Pednekar had paid her earlier employer in Panaji Rs 4,000, and another Rs 800 to her grandmother.

GSCPCR chairperson Sameera Kazi said, “When we visited the girl in the hospital on Wednesday, we found that her grandfather had finally come to meet her. We asked her if she would like to be with her grandparents or with her mother. She said she didn’t want to be with any of them.” GSCPCR will now write to the police asking them not to leave the girl to her grandparents’ care. The girl’s mother, who used to live at Mapusa, has remained untraced.

30 July 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition