The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India report reveals that criminal action against 23 persons involved in selling minor girls on a stamp paper in Rajasthan for physical abuse and sexual assault in various parts of the country as well as in abroad. The Commission suggested setting up in every State Anti-Human Trafficking Nodal Officer of the rank of the Secretary or Inspector General of Police for strict monitoring and coordination with the government i centre to take effective measures to curb the menace and also ensure the rehabilitation of the victims.
NHRC, India has observed that the practice of selling of girls in some communities in the country in the recent past, including minors, is still continuing and this practice requires to be curbed forthwith in totality requiring stringent steps be taken against such practices. The Commission also stated that girls were still being sold on stamp paper in few districts of Rajasthan and sent to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, Delhi and few Gulf countries in abroad subjected to physical abuse, torture and sexual assault in slavery and forced into the sex trade. The State Government confirmed the incident and said that a charge sheet was filed against the 23 accused and as many as seven girls among the victims of human trafficking were saved and rehabilitated in Nari Niketan Reform Homes.
The Commission further suggested the states as well as government in centre should spread awareness about the constitutional prohibition, preventing child prostitution and educate people about the selling of minor girls and their illegal marriage to eradicate such illegal practices and found that large number of such females forced into prostitution in red light area or working as Mumbai bar dance girls trafficked from Rajasthan or other parts in the country. The Commission has also asked the DGP, Maharashtra to extend help to police in Rajasthan or other states in this regard with a view to taking effective steps to prevent such incidents and ensure their repatriation to their original places and the State to ensure their rehabilitation helping to eradicate the menace of child prostitution and selling of minors for various evil purposes.
NHRC study revealed, West Bengal — bordering Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal is a key trafficking hub where more than 50,000 girls are found missing, which is the highest figure in the country. According to the latest national crime records, a female (whose real name has not been exposed) was sold to traffickers by her family after refusing an arranged marriage at the age of 16. She was handed over to a man in Kashmir hundreds kilometers away being sexually abused, she is not the only case, more than 50,000 girls are missing in West Bengal alone, the highest figure in the country, there are more than 2,250 cases of human trafficking registered as per 2022 records, but the real figure is believed to be much higher. Many of the missing girls are trafficked through Kolkata, state capital of West Bengal and one of India’s biggest cities, some into forced labour, others into prostitution. “They had beaten me up, kept me hungry for days, sexually abused me,” many of the victims being sexually exploited in commercial sex in the country said in their breaking voice in emotion, speaking about this with tears in their eyes.
Information reveals, there are significant numbers of Nepali and Bangladeshi women and girls are also lured to India for sex trafficking with the false promise of a job. According to a member of the Commission, families often don’t want to pursue the case once a missing girl is rescued. Poverty is a key cause in most cases. Moreover, there is a lack of awareness and a lack of adequate support in most of the cases. There are cases in which many young women were trapped by the illegal practice of bonded labour. There is a case, in which a young female working in a garment factory in neighbouring Bangladesh, when the family came in contact with a broker who promised to smuggle her into India for better paid garment factory, but after arriving in India, she was told the work at the factory was no longer available but that she could instead dance in a bar. Refusing that, and without income or shelter, she stayed with a man who offered a place to stay. “He abused and hit me, tore my clothes, assaulted me and after repeatedly sexually abused by him as awell as by another two men who raped me several times in two weeks,” she said with tears in her eyes.
