Indian company under investigation for alleged sexual abuse and exploitation of employees
- Police in the state of Bihar have made several arrests after a video allegedly showing a young female employee being beaten went viral
A scandal in the eastern Indian state of Bihar involving a company that allegedly promised jobs to young women to lure them into captivity and sexual abuse has caused nationwide outrage.
Police are investigating the allegations and have made two arrests based on a criminal complaint initiated by Shivangi Devi*, a woman who claims to have escaped the company after suffering months of horrific abuse.
In 2022, Shivangi was a 20-year-old undergraduate student majoring in Hindi at a college near her village in Bihar. She said she was scrolling through Facebook one day in June when she received a friend request from a stranger with a private profile. Curious to know who it was, she accepted.
“He began speaking to me casually, like any other new acquaintance,” Shivangi told This Week in Asia in a phone interview. “Then he asked me if I was interested in working at the pharmaceutical sales company where he was employed.
“He said it’d be a good opportunity for a student like me. I’d just have to work for around five hours per day in the office and could spend the rest of the time using the company’s internet and computer facilities for my academic work. The pay was 25,000 Indian rupees [US$300].”
