Child trafficking goes unabated in Madhya Pradesh

BHOPAL: Arrest of an absconder, who was involved in child trafficking, is a grim reminder of presence of traffickers within and outside the state.

The man arrested by by

Avadhpuri police

on Thursday, identified as

Santosh Shinde

, 45, is a resident of Kolar. He fled from

Ayodhya Nagar police station

in January 2015. The man was arrested for his alleged involvement in trafficking of minor girls from Bhopal to Rajgarh and Narsinhgarh. Once the lid was off his acts, he went to Gandhinagar and Nagpur, stayed there for two years and came back to Bhopal only recently.

Though he was inactive for last two years, his arrest points to a network of child traffickers, who are moving across the cities, eyeing vulnerable minors.

The racket works in a particular way in which girls and boys are trafficked for prostitution, marriages, labour and sometimes are even sold in foreign countries.

A source said, “The code for trafficking of girls among agents is “maal supply’. These agents get order either from the state or from Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra and Goa. Traffickers keep a watch on vulnerable minors. The moment they get “order”, they send a girl to person, who gave them demand.”

Police are hand in gloves with these traffickers. If hue and cry is made about trafficked child by public, agents return the child to police and if no objection is raised, police prefer to look the other way, a source said.

Bhopal is considered a safe haven for traffickers, who get them here from small towns of the state and sell them in other states. The human traffickers in capital particularly deal in bride trafficking in which girls are sold on the pretext of marriage to states like Rajasthan and Haryana. These girls are repeatedly sold by their buyers and have to face sexual abuse.

Prashant Dubey, a social activist, who is fighting against child trafficking, says agents in the city receive demands from Rajasthan for brides after which they lure the family of the girl and sell them.

The rackets works in a particular way. Families having male members past nubile age, contact agents in Rajasthan who, in turn, contact agents in Bhopal. These agents generally target girls from poor financial background and then lure their family by promising them a good and prosperous life after marriage.

Dubey said, “Once parents of a girl agree, she is taken to Rajasthan for marriage. The girl and his family don’t have any right to reject the boy even if they don’t like him. But the groom’s family can reject them.”

“Most of these girls are tribals and dalits, who have to go through a ‘shuddhikaran’ in Indore, in which they have to attend a religious ceremony, conducted by a priest for a period of eight days. It is only after this, they are eligible to get married to a groom of upper caste,” he said.

Surprisingly, it is happening in a state, which has 24 anti-human trafficking units with an annual budget of more than Rs 7 lakh per unit. But still 24 children go missing from MP every day. The number of missing girls is double the number of boys, going State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB) statistics.

In last 10 years, more than 80,000 children went missing in the state. Of these, 82% children were traced. But, 18% are still missing. Traffickers are largely targeting tribal-dominated districts in the state for human trafficking. Tribal districts have maximum number of cases of girls trafficking.

Bharti Sharma, former chairperson of CWC, says, “In every six months, more than 50 children in an age group of 9-12 from Madhya Pradesh are rescued from Delhi. These children are sold by traffickers to agents in Delhi, who send them as domestic help or labourers in small scale industries.”

“These children are exploited to the core. They are made to work 16-18 hours every day. They are not given food and beaten up every day. Sometimes, they are sexually assaulted. They are not paid for work,” Sharma said.

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