Thousands of labourers are trafficked out of India every day with promises of more money and a better life. But the reality is far from it
Time: 6 in the morning. Place: office of the National Anti-Trafficking Committee (NATC) in south Calcutta. The NATC is a non-government organisation. There are seven men sitting around a square table. They have landed hours ago from Kuala Lumpur, where they were working as labourers at a construction site and are now waiting to record their statements. Thereafter, they will head for their village in Ranaghat in Nadia district.
Prosenjit Paik, Shahjahan Mondal and Biplab Mistri are among the returning labourers. Each of them looks equally emaciated. Their eyes are red from many a sleepless night or from crying. Shahjahan, who is in his early twenties, appears nervous and stammers. Biplab breaks into tears without provocation. Prosenjit seems very angry.
It is Prosenjit who narrates how he and his companions were offered a job with Sky Master Construction Company, a Malaysian firm. The contract prepared on a Rs 10 stamp paper clearly said he would be paid 50 Malaysian ringgits or Rs 850 (1 ringgit equals Rs 17.01) per day as he had prior experience; novices would get 45 ringgits (Rs 766) per day.
But things were not as they sounded. “The moment we landed in Kuala Lumpur, our passports were taken away,” Prosenjit tells The Telegraph.
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