Daughters of bonded laborers from Mahabubnagar clear class 10 exam, aim at brighter future

While Nandini secured 7.8 GPA, Anusha got 6 GPA, bringing recognition to their family and smiles on the faces of their parents.

Mahabubnagar: Despite homelessness and their parents being bonded labourers, two girls from the Motinagar colony in Mahabubnagar district centre have become the first-generation literates of their family by passing Class 10 recently. They have now become a ray of hope for their illiterate parents.

Clearing matriculation was a historic milestone as far Nandini and Anusha were concerned as they broke the shackles of illiteracy and of bonded labor that held their family for quite a long time. While Nandini secured 7.8 GPA, Anusha got 6 GPA, bringing recognition to their family and smiles on the faces of their parents. They both studied from Class VI to SSC at a KGBV in Maheshwaram of Sangareddy district.

---

The girls’ performance holds significance considering the pitiable background of their parents who worked as bonded laborers in a stone quarry in Karnataka from 2017 to 2019. They were rescued and returned to Mahabubnagar in 2020. They were determined to give a bright future for their daughters. Undeterred by poverty, they refused to let Nandini and Anusha become child laborers.

“Our parents don’t even know their nativity and origins. They moved from one quarry to another in search of livelihood. All their life they spent in the quarry. They never exercised their right to voting because they were not aware of it. However, they did not make us bonded laborers like many parents and extended support to us in continuing studies, facing all odds,” Nandini said.

In 2017, the girls’ parents took Rs.10,000 as advance from a quarry owner, which pushed them into a debt trap. Each day, they worked for 19 hours in extreme heat and with no protective gear. They were offered meagre wages. Their dire situation continued until 2019, when the police, acting on a social worker’s complaint, rescued them and sent them back to Mahabubnagar.

Nandini recalled that during schooling, she had the guilt of her inability to help her parents while they toiled to support her education. She recounted that they had struggled for education during the Covid-19 lockdown when they were unable to get basic study materials. Unfazed by the challenges, the girls passed in SSC with flying colors and now aspire to pursue higher education.

While Nandini would like to become a teacher, Anusha’s ambition is to crack a post of nurse at a government hospital. The gritty girls aim to support their parents and help them lead a happy life in future.