I will give a great punch on the face of the trafficker if he enters my village again. I will be a great trouble for him. He has tortured me very much; he did not allow me to play with my friends. I was a very small child in the loom, eight years old. I was there for one month this one month was very scary for me. My family is at the breadline hence my parents fell easily into the trick of the trafficker. He told my father that I will be getting 200 rupees [$4] a month and I will be working in good conditions at a good place. But that man has cheated me and my family. I was forced to work for more than 16 hours a day, with insufficient food to eat and in a room where there was too much suffocation because of the smell of the woolen threads used for weaving carpet. Every day we were made to complete at least 200 rupees worth of part of a carpet. Once a week or so, I was paid ten or 20 rupees [$0.20-0.45] by the broker who brought me. He was getting all my money, near about 110 rupees [$2] from the owner. Same was done with the other children too.
Being a small child I was getting beatings from the broker and sometimes from the owner. Most of the time that broker was there to supervise our work. I never dreamt of such a poor condition at this age when other children play and enjoy. I was working continuously on the loom for more than 16 hours daily. I feel that this is an injustice to we poor children.
Narrative as told to Free the Slaves, April 6, 2005, at Bal Vikas Ashram, in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.
