The scenes at
the transit home for girls in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, India,
are horrible. Girls as young as 13 are brought here for temporary reflief after
they have been rescued from sex traffickers and brothels in big cities. Each
has suffered varying degrees of abuse, torture, slavery and inhumane treatment.
According to
police estimates, 300,000 women and girls have been trafficked for exploitative
sex work from Andhra Pradesh; of these just 3,000 have been rescued so far. The
state, Andhra Pradesh, is relatively prosperous but is also has some of the
poorest people in the country.
Organized sex
trafficking is so entrenched that traffickers have penetrated the remotest
villages, preying on vulnerable young girls from impoverished households and
pushing them into sex work and slavery across the country. Promises of
marriage, employment and even food are used to lure girls from their homes,
only for them to find themselves forced into the sex trade. It is not
surprising that when rescued girls are referred to the transit home their minds
and bodies are in deep trauma
In 2005,
India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) estimated that 44,000 children
go missing in the country every year. Of these, 11,000 are never traced. A 1998
report noted that children constituted more than 40% of those trafficked into
sexual exploitation in the country.One study in India found more than three in
10 trafficked children suffered from HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections and
other problems.
The overwhelming
majority of girls pushed into exploitative sex work come from rural pockets of
India hit by extreme poverty. Social structures and deep-rooted gender bias
mean they are the poorest, most disadvantaged people even within their own
communities. Girls usually drop out of school long before their brothers; they
are assigned household chores and often look after their siblings while their
parents go out to work.
In many cases,
girls are simply abandoned to the care of neighbors by migrant parents who
leave for seasonal work in the cities. The
charity is supporting the recovery and rehabilitation of rescued girls in
transit homes. They are encouraged to continue their education and are offered
training to secure decent employment or set up their own business. For a few
moments, the girls can forget their circumstances, and revert to being playful
youngsters. Some are hopeful it could mean a new life.
Often unwanted
and unwelcome, victims find themselves trapped in life-long destitution and
slavery. Sometimes the only option is to return to their traffickers. Nearly
eight out of 10 victims are forced back on to the streets and into brothels
after being rehabilitated, according to Andhra Pradesh police. Meanwhile, their
traffickers go mostly unpunished, keeping up a thriving sex trade. Although
hundreds of girls are rescued from brothels every year, police say the
conviction rate of perpetrators under the national Immoral Trafficking
Prevention Act is low.
This leaves
many sex workers helpless and lonely, and for the most there is no way to break
the cycle. Most do not even exist on official records, leaving them without
identity papers and excluding them from the little welfare support the state
can afford, such as discounted food rations. The rehabilitation support for sex
workers is virtually non-existent and most are either unable to access it or
have rejoined the sex trade by the time any support becomes available. Only sex
workers with HIV/AIDS are entitled to a monthly financial support of less than
$4 provided by the state government. But even those who qualify rarely get it. Challenges
like these make the task of organizations like Plan International and its
partner grassroot NGOs extremely challenging.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/10/indias-sex-slaves-face-lifelong-cycle-of-abuse/?hpt=wo_t4
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