Eight minor girls rescued

Kids were tortured, forced to work for 16 hours a day

As many as eight minor girls have been rescued from the premises of a placement agency in Shakurpur in the capital in the past one week.

Eleven-year-old Meena, was abducted from her native village in Assam and sold to a placement agency in Shakurpur Basti in east Delhi to work in domestic servitude in 2007. Here she was raped and beaten on number of occasions.

Her father kept searching for his daughter for six years with just a supposed name of a placement agency casually mentioned by the trafficker to him in Assam.

Last week, a police team raided the house of the owner of the placement agency on a tip-off by a child’s rights group — Bachpan Bachao Andolan — after an undercover investigation.

Meena was recovered with another girl child who was trafficked from West Bengal some years ago. This child has even forgotten the name of her native place. An FIR was registered under section 363 (kidnapping) of Indian Penal Code and sections 23 and 26 of Juvenile Justice Act 2000.

“After the rescue of Meena we filed more complaints about missing girls. And as many as seven other girls have been rescued from the custody of a ring of traffickers masquerading as an NGO in Shakurpur area,” said Rakesh Senger of BBA.

“All girls were made to work for over 16 hours a day without being paid a penny. They were also brutally beaten and often assaulted with objects like slippers and brooms. They were threatened with death if they dared to leave,” he added.

According to him, over 100 girls still remain missing from Lakhimpur district in Assam and thousands continue to be trafficked from Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and other parts of Northeast in the name of better livelihood opportunities.

R S Chaurasia, BBA chairperson said, “The Delhi High Court had passed elaborate guidelines for regulating placement agencies to curb trafficking of girls in 2010. Some special powers to assist the victims of trafficking were also granted to the Delhi Commission for Women and other agencies for providing quick access to justice. But hardly any comprehensive action is taken.”

“The directions of High Court have not been followed by the government agencies at all,” he said.

He added that the BBA had again approached the apex court for preventing trafficking of girls for domestic labour in 2011.

“However, the Delhi Private Placement Agencies (Regulation) Bill 2012 is yet to be tabled. Writ petitions for the rescue and rehabilitation of hundreds of girls are pending in the high courts of Jharkhand, Assam and Delhi,” Chaurasia said.

We demand that the proposed legislation be made stringent. “Also, there should be guidelines for legal sanction against officers and employers.”