- Around 2,000 children are trafficked annually into India from Bangladesh
- Most of the children travel under assumed identities and claim they are from West Bengal
- Tracking them is difficult since the children are often kept in above-board massage/beauty parlours, away from red-light areas.
- Most of them end up in the flesh trade in Goa, Rajasthan, Delhi and West Bengal.
- India, Bangladesh are working on a protocol for quick repatriation of minors
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Worse, despite a ban, these children are often tried under section 14 of the Foreigners Act, which, instead of treating them as victims, views them as foreigners who have strayed into the country without a permit. Says a senior prison official, "Regulations allow us to keep the children with their mothers till they turn six, after which they have to be transferred to homes run by non-governmental organisations or state-run homes as the process of relocating the children takes not less than a year."
And it is here that problems crop up, as children's homes come under the social welfare department and prisons come under the department of home, vexing the process of easy and quick repatriation. The completion of their term in prison sets off a laborious process. The Indian police writes to the Border Security Force which, in turn, gets in touch with their counterpart, Bangladesh Rifles. They then contact the Bangladesh Police, which verifies the address of the Bangladeshis. It is a process that certainly doesn't get done in a day.
But even one child rescued and returned to his or her home is a milestone in the effort of any NGO. "I think it is a global responsibility which all countries should share," says a volunteer. There are a thousand others who have been sucked into the trafficking stream, plucked away from their rightful homes, brought to a strange land, and consigned to living hells that offer no escape routes.
And even if physical confines can be broken into, the prisons of the mind are impossible to breach. NGO Stop has rescued at least 2,000 children in the last three years. The home run by them houses more than 50 of the rescued children. And all require intensive counselling. Repeated sexual abuse is a demon that haunts them forever.
