By Shilpa Nair
An 18-year-old Dalit woman who works as a domestic help at the house of Tamil Nadu DMK MLA I Karunanithi’s son has alleged that she was physically tortured and was denied medical care by her employers. However, Karunanithi denied the woman’s claims and said his son’s family used to treat her well and only “pulled her up after she did something wrong”.
In a video shared by Evidence, a non-profit organisation, the Dalit woman said she completed 12th grade and got employed as a domestic help through an agent. She was working at the house of Karunanithi’s son Anto Mathivanan and his wife Marlina in Chennai.
She said she had been employed at the house for seven months and her employers used to “physically assault” her in “whatever way they wished to”. She also added that she was not paid her wages.
“Even if I don’t do the smallest task properly, they would slap me on my face. Once, they asked me to prepare food by 6 am because they were going out of town. I hadn’t slept till 2 am the previous night. Nobody can survive without sleeping. I could only get up by 7 am. Because I couldn’t keep the food ready, they burnt my hands using a hair straightener,” the woman said, while breaking down.
She added that her employers did not take her to the hospital no matter how much they “tortured” her or how much she bled. “I had to treat it myself,” she added.
The woman also said the couple threatened her, saying they come from an “MLA’s family” and nobody would come to her help if she told anyone about the alleged torture.
This story was originally published in indiatoday.in. Read the full story here .