KRISHNAGIRI: They have never met the US Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton, but the villagers of Anchetti in the remote cranny of Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district are praying and hoping that she would become the next US president.
Not because Hillary is the first woman who could don the Presidential mantle. Also certainly not because she is the wife of former US President Bill Clinton. Strangely, the villagers of Anchetti have a curious connect with Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Hillary Clinton, then the US Secretary of State had voiced her support for the young girls who were hired as bonded labourers under the ‘Sumangali Thittam’ in the textile mills. She had specifically mentioned the ‘Sumangali scheme’ and accused India of being a source of forced labour, prompting the government to crack the whip on the bonded labour practice in the textile industry.
The mill owners offered to pay Rs 1 lakh as marriage expenses for young girls who were forced to drop out of school and work in the textile mills in Tirupur and neighbouring Erode as bonded labourers.
Following Hillary Clinton's statement, the government poured in Rs 5 crore funds to rescue the women caught in the Sumangali scheme. “Her statement has saved our girls who were forced to quit school and sent to work as slaves in the textile mills,” says 34-year-old A.Periya Amma of Poonchoolai village, near Anchetti here.
