According to report, crime against women and children – from rape to abduction — in Delhi’s Outer District is one of the highest recorded over the last three years. All this, despite reluctance to report. Patriot visits Peera Garhi relief camp to see how women live – with fear looming all around
A hot, humid day in Delhi, face mask drenched in sweat. Travelling through its Outer District we meet 29-year-old Poonam sitting on a charpoi set outside her home in Peera Garhi relief camp. As we begin to speak to her, it soon dawns on us that the heat means nothing to her, instead the prospect of the monsoon showers presents a relief from the confines of a house which has clung on to her.
Married at the age of 14, this camp has been her home since she was born. She now faces a Covid-19 lockdown induced financial crisis, losing her job in a beauty salon. But hardships are not something alien to her. Made to give up her dream of finishing school – removed after class 7– then married off to a man, who would eventually subject her to physical and mental abuse, she also raises their two children. But Poonam’s story, in her own words, is almost decidedly all too common here.