Thomson Reuters Foundation is a charity registered in England and Wales registration number: About Thomson Reuters Foundation. Global Press Institute. About our Women coverage We focus on stories that help to empower women and bring lasting change to gender inequality.
Newsletter sign up:. Most Popular A better life? Hopes and hardship of Mexico migration Energy-short South Sudan powers up - but with fossil fuels Red Cross boosts disaster-prone communities with blockchain 'cash' In rain-short Niger, wasps deployed in war on crop-munching worm Demands grow for 'global justice' on climate damage at U. Marry knows little about herself. She does not have a birth certificate or a National Identity Card, a compulsory document for all adults here that must be carried at all times.
So she says she made up her own name and guesses she is around Because she knows Tamil best, she guesses her ethnicity must be Tamil, but she has no way of knowing. Marry says that the furthest she can remember back was working as a servant in a rich family's bungalow when she was 10 or But a few months late she reached puberty, and her employer started mistreating her. Because of that, she started to hit and punish me every day.
Finally, I decided to [leave] that bungalow. He promised to help me to find a job in Colombo. He asked me to come with him, and both of us got onto a bus.
After a one-hour journey, we got down [off] the bus and went to a small room around 8 o'clock at night. First, he gave me some food. She says he took to her the rest of the way to Colombo the following day morning and introduced her to a place where he said she would be able to get a job. The people there gave her a new dress, soap, powder and perfume.
