JOIN US7 girls rescued from GB Road brothels
Seven girls, including three minors, were rescued from brothels at GB Road, the capital’s red-light area, in two separate operations.
Acting on a tip-off that two girls from West Bengal have been brought forcibly to Delhi, the West Bengal Police raided a brothel at Swami Shradhanand Marg, also known as GB Road, on Sunday afternoon and found four girls hidden in a tunnel.
Two were from Bengal and the other two were trafficked from Pune.
The operation was conducted with the help of Delhi Police, Delhi Commission of Women (DCW), and NGO Shakti Vahini.
“When the police reached the spot, the pimp had hidden the girls in a tunnel. When the tunnel was broken and they were taken out, they were in a bad state,” said DCW chief Swati Maliwal. Out of the four rescued, two are minors, she added.
“Two girls are refusing to speak but the rest told us that they have been forced into prostitution and have no idea how they landed up in Delhi. They have not been given a single penny till date and were also beaten up on multiple occasions,” Maliwal said.
Two of the girls are at the brothel since three months and two from one month.
Similarly, in another operation on Saturday, three girls, including one minor, were rescued from a brothel at G B Road by Delhi Police on receiving information from NGO Rescue Foundation. The girls told the police that they have been forced into prostitution.
Following the operations, the DCW chief met the DCP of Kamla Market Police Station, under whose jurisdiction G B road falls.
The girls will now be sent to the government’s ‘Nari Niketan’ home.
“Though a number of girls are being rescued these days with the help of NGOs, the larger question is this crime is growing in Delhi. This nexus of trafficking needs to break,” the DCW chief said.
“Another concern is the rehabilitation of those rescued. The Delhi government, in coordination with other agencies should come up with a plan to address this,” she said.
In a step in this direction, Delhi Chief Secretary K K Sharma will hold a meeting of the state-level coordination committee which was constituted to combat trafficking and rehabilitation of sex workers. The committee was formed in 2012 but has not met even once in the last three years.
The decision to hold the meeting was taken after Maliwal met Sharma in September and pointed out that the meeting has not been convened since 2012.
She had also highlighted that the committee consists of over 25 members because of which it never met, considering the fact that it will be difficult to get all 25 members to meet every month.