JASHPUR ( Chhattisgarh): It's a cold, windy morning in Thuthiamba village in the interiors of Jashpur district and Basanti, 20, is clutching her one-year-old son close to her chest for both warmth and comfort. She is ravaged by the thought that the child will grow up never knowing who the father was.
Basanti was just 12 when she was taken to New Delhi for domestic work by a woman from a nearby village. Six years later, she returned home five months pregnant after being repeatedly raped by men in the household where she worked.
There are thousands of girls like Basanti in Jashpur, which has emerged as a major hotspot for trafficking of minor girls and women as domestic help to different parts of the country, especially Delhi and Mumbai. Most of these girls end up being physically abused and sexually exploited. A few end up fighting AIDS.
During the just concluded winter session of the assembly, Nanki Ram Kanwar, the state home minister, said more than 6000 young girls and women were reported missing so far in the past one year from Jashpur and neighbouring districts alone. Officials at the state department of women and child development, however, put the figure at more than double - at about 13,000 girls. A survey conducted by State Resource Centre, Adult and Continuing Education in 2009 said there were about 20,000 girls who were trafficked to other states in the past 7-8 years.
The numbers are mind numbing; the stories of these girls more so. Basanti, for instance, says that she was forced to have sex with three different men in the house where she worked. "I resisted many times and tried to complain to the owner but nobody listened to me." The trauma that many of these girls undergo even result in some of them losing their mental balance. Mamta Kujur of Jashpur Jan Vikas Sansthan cites the example of a 20-year-old girl from Sitonga village who was sold to five men when she was not even 15. She was kept closed in a small, dark room and was raped, tortured, forced to eat leftovers almost every day. When she protested, she was made to eat human excreta. After being assaulted for more than a year, when she succeeded in absconding from the place and reached her hometown, she was abused by her father for not bringing any money and for leaving the job. She became mentally unstable soon after.
At the centre of this trafficking business is a network of agents who operate with impunity. Most of them are handed over to placement agencies who in turn place them as domestic helps. Some of them are even sent to Saudi Arabia, UK and Libya to be sold to aged men for marriage or to produce a male child.
Since the girls or their family members hardly ever come forward to complain, the traffickers are rarely apprehended, say sources. Not surprising then that data received from SP, Jashpur, talks of only 30 reported cases. The figures collected from Police Headquarters, Raipur, reveal that only 40 such cases were reported this year while 105 cases were reported since 2008.
The police are also quick to brush aside claims of sexual exploitation of the girls. Manish Sharma, SP, Jashpur, says that "reports of 'migrated' girls being sexually exploited or returning HIV positive are hard to believe.
But wherever a TOI team went, it only heard stories of brutality and betrayal.
While the police are in denial, local organizations like Janshpur Jan Vikas Sansthan and Jeevan Jharna Vikas Sanstha are working in association with UNICEF to spread awareness on the issue. They are also involved in rescuing the trafficked girls and counseling them. They say their work will show results only if the administration helps them in their effort. "At the end of the day only they have the power and resources to save hundreds of innocent girls like Basanti," an NGO activist says.
(Names have been changed to protect identity)
Times View
That the people guilty of trafficking these tribal girls must be brought to book is obvious. Tough action against such unscrupulous elements, however, is only a small part of the solution to the problem. If we really are outraged by what has happened, we must demand that the root cause of the problem be dealt with. Six and a half decades after Independence, is it not a shame that India's tribal-dominated areas remain as backward and bereft of development as they are? Governments, whether in the Centre or the states, need to do much more to develop these areas economically. When tribal girls get enough opportunity for gainful employment locally, they will be less prone to the allurements of criminal elements out to dupe them with promises of a good job in the city.
Chhattisgarh district loses 6000 girls a year
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Chhattisgarh district loses 6000 girls a year
