THE MISSING GIRLS OF BENGAL - Hyderabad News Network

Thirteen year old Amina and her friend Bindu, 14, (names changed) from a village in Bangladesh were looking for work in India, hoping to escape grinding poverty. A rude shock awaited them; their 'work' as promised by a woman who looked matronly enough , meant selling their young bodies. Luckily for them, they were rescued by the police in Barasat, 25 km north to Calcutta, capital of Left-ruled West Bengal. In August this year, 18 Bengali speaking girls were rescued from a brothel in Pune in Maharashtra. They were kidnapped from the busy Sealdah station when they came from the countryside looking for jobs.

This story has been repeating with alarming regularity in the recent past. West Bengal also has international borders with Bangladesh and Nepal, known as source areas for girl trafficking. Calcutta serves as a hub where the girls are either sold to city brothels or are in transit to other parts of the country.

According to a Hyderabad News reports collection from various sources, "Action Research on Trafficking in Women and Children in India" (2002-03 ) prepared by the Delhi-based Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) for the National Human Rights Commission, the girls are sold and re-sold quite a few times, starting at Rs 700 to as much as Rs 1 lakh depending on age, looks, etc. Sankar Sen, Senior Fellow, ISS, who claims it to be " the first empirical study of its kind in the country" covering 13 states, reveals startling facts. At any given time, 20,000 girls are transported from one part of the country to another. Unicef also says that 5,000 to 7,000 girls enter from Nepal and Bangladesh into India every year. It places the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at the top of the slot for CSE followed by Karnataka and West Bengal in terms of abduction and sexual exploitation of children.

"It's a low risk, high profit business because the law is lax about punishing the traffickers," Sen says.

Globally too, trafficking is a ballooning problem and is said to be a $ 7 billion industry. Its hefty profits are just below that of narcotics and arms trade. Trafficking, however, is not for prostitution alone but also for domestic labour, begging etc. but CSE (commercial sexual exploitation) is the major motive. The UN convention clarifies on the "coercion" element to be considered when trafficking is discussed.

A study found that: The age of the victims is coming down rapidly: Majority of the victims are illiterate and from socially backward class: 54 per cent of the traffickers avoid arrest by bribing officials: Rehabilitation facilities are inadequate.

Most of the girls trafficked are under 18 years because it is easier to do so. The report says that 14.7 per cent trafficked are aged between six to ten years. The children of sex workers enter the profession too. "Rape victims, ironically, are also sold into prostitution as they are considered unfit to lead a normal social life." ( The Changing Status of Women in West Bengal, 1970-2000). Meanwhile the number of rape cases has been on the rise the WB state.

The trafficking route usually originates in the international border areas. En route to the city, touts also lure girls from the hinterland. The Census 2001 shows that West Bengal has five of the ten most populous districts in the country. Three of them, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Murshidabad border Bangladesh. The porous border, 4,156 kilometre in length of which 29 per cent is riverine and 71 per cent land, is particularly problematic. India's Border Security Force (BSF) officers admit that it is difficult to distinguish between the illegal entrees and trafficked girls as they speak the same language-Bengali. The incidence of trafficking is the highest in Murshidabad which has a Muslim majority population; the status of women is low and poverty is rampant.

The other vulnerable point is north Bengal which has 14 entry points with Nepal. According to Maiti Nepal, an NGO working in the field for the last decade, 1.5 to 2 lakh Nepalese women , a quarter of them minors, are still in India's brothels. Once in India, the women are kept in West Bengal and neighboring Orissa after being "sorted and graded" and sent to other metros, even abroad. There is no concurrent data on the number of girls and women trafficked from across the borders.

In the case of cross-border trafficking, the matter is complicated as the victim is indicted under the country's law as illegal entrants and pushed back when found. They are doubly victimized, activists feel. BSF officers say that they are also hampered by the absence of women officers in the force in the border areas who can conduct the interrogation, as well as lack of adequate funds, lack of short-stay home, etc.

However, as against popular belief, trafficking from across the international border comprises only 10 per cent of total number in India, the rest 90 per cent is internal. In majority of the cases, the girls are trafficked by known persons, relatives, lovers, even family members. The report found that 75.7 per cent of the trafficked women have direct link with traffickers. Lure of a job or marriage is the modus operandi in most cases, while kidnapping is common too for coercion into prostitution, found a survey by Sanlaap, an NGO in Calcutta. The touts, often accompanied by women looking like ordinary housewives, move around the villages searching for victims. Festivals, village fairs are good hunting grounds. Ironically, disasters are also a ripe time for touts to procure girls as was seen in the aftermath of the super cyclone in Orissa; the recent tsunami in south India raised the same fears.

Until now, rescuing and rehabilitation of the girls have been done largely by the NGOs with help from the police. This itself is an uphill task considering, according to the Report, 40 per cent of the police officers are not aware of trafficking problems and about 55 per cent police do not give importance to the problem busy as they are with other law and order problems. Sensitizing the police is a valid suggestion.

Reiterates Sutapa Diwanji, director of the NGO 'Gana Unnayan Parishad' which works in Jalpaiguri district in north Bengal, "The police raid the brothels and put all of them together, teenage girls to middle-aged women, in cells under inhuman conditions. Gross human rights violation is common. The young girls are abused with vile languages which frighten them more. The police should be sensitized and the young girls should be separated and given a chance for rehabilitation." Diwanji also reveals that the current slump in the tea industry and closure of many tea gardens in the area has augmented prostitution. This highway corridor to the north-east is also busy with truckers and the increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases around this area has been worrying the health workers.

However, there are 'success' stories too. Recently four prostitutes were arrested when they were on their way to Bangladesh to recruit new girls. In another incident, 100 people were sent back of whom 47 were females of different ages. But activists point out, they are only 'pushed back' and nobody knows what happens to them afterwards. For all one knows, they may re-enter from another point. At a seminar on the issue, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Governor of West Bengal, suggested more co-operation between the two countries and also wondered aloud why bus stations, railway stations, etc. cannot be monitored like 'customs check points'.

BSF officials feel that the border fencing and flood-lighting may help detect illegal crossing. Setting up village vigilance committees in such areas is another suggestion. Involving the panchayats (local self-governing bodies ) is recommended too. They can maintain a register on girls going out to work, and also keep tabs on the families, since many willingly sell their daughters. Bimala (name changed) from Sonagachi, the largest red-light area in Calcutta confirms, "My parents knowingly sent me with this woman from the village to work here. I am never allowed to visit them but I send them money every month."

Awareness campaigns could also provide information to the families on the fate of the daughters who go to cities for work and often fall into the trap of touts. Affirms Praveen, superintendent of police, North 24 Parganas district, " We are dealing with a problem of thousands, not just hundreds. Awareness building is vital." The West Bengal police have opened toll free lines from last November to take complaints of missing persons or other queries. There is also a website which has a list of missing girls.

Laments Sen, "Today, South Asia is replacing South East Asia in trafficking but efforts are inadequate to curb it. A task force was envisaged under SAARC agreement but the Convention itself has not been amended. There is no mechanism for proper co-ordination, even the NGO network between the countries is haphazard. " However, where the police and NGOs work together, successful intervention has been noticed, as in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, the state with a border with Nepal.

Ultimately, it needs the co-ordination of all the agencies, law-keepers, NGOs and the civil society to make sure that the chain of the missing girls is broken.