THE DRESSEMBER BLOG

BANGALORE, INDIA – On March 10, 2017, justice was served for 12 former bonded labor slaves, as the wealthy brick kiln owner who had once trapped and abused them was found guilty for his crimes.

Back in 2010, this kiln owner had personally recruited impoverished women and men from small villages several hours outside Bangalore. He promised the families good wages to work in his kiln, but instead forced them to labor more than 12 hours a day for only a fraction of their promised pay. One of these families was Roopa's whose story of rescue we highlighted this Monday.

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She met her in drug rehab. Milena had finally made the choice to get help and get off drugs. She had gotten clean through a center in the Netherlands, found a job, got her own apartment and was on the way to creating a new start and a new life for herself.

Not long after she began heading in a healthy direction, a friend from rehab called her. She wanted to have coffee and catch up. Milena traveled to a nearby town to meet her old friend. But what she didn’t know was her so-called friend had ulterior motives.

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Roopa* and her family were caught in a relentless storm of violence and backbreaking labor. They were slaves

Every day from 2:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night, they molded, hauled and stacked hundreds of clay bricks with dozens of other slaves at a brick kiln—anxiously working to reach the daily thousand-brick quota or risk a vicious beating.

She was only 6 years old when her family became trapped at the kiln.

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