The tea pickers sold into slavery

A car, speeding through the crowded streets of Delhi. Inside, a phone is ringing. The voice on the line is that of a ghost, a girl who vanished into thin air three years ago.

Somila was 16 when the traffickers lured her from the poverty of her home on the tea plantation in Assam with promises of a better life. Now she is a slave, trapped and terrified, lost in a city of 16 million people.

Crammed into the car are people determined to find her and set her free. They crane to hear her voice on the tinny speaker. Help me, she says. Her owners are threatening to sell her into prostitution in Mumbai. She is afraid she will be lost for ever.

Help me. Find me. There is not a second to lose…

This is the world of modern slavery, a world in which something as apparently innocuous as the price of a cup of tea can drive an ancient trade that many assume has been consigned to history.

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