Adolescent girls in schools in North 24-Parganas have a new set of visitors — cops. Police teams have been conducting awareness campaigns on the perils of child marriage, often the stepping stone to trafficking, and is on the rise since the advent of the pandemic.
A team of officers from Hasnabad, Hingalganj and Hemnagar police stations in the Basirhat subdivision have set a target of visiting at least two higher secondary schools every month and talking to students, primarily from Classes XI and XII.
The girls are also being told to exercise caution while using social media and avoid accepting unknown friend requests.
Many traffickers are said to have lured girls on social media platforms, according to the police and rights activists.
Senior officials of the child welfare committee and their counterparts in NGOs working in these far-flung rural pockets said they have been receiving at least 12 to 14 calls to stop child marriages in the area every month.
“An equal number possibly gets married off and we don’t even get to know about them,” said Sakila Khatun of Keya, a Hasnabad-based NGO working against child marriages in the region.
“Parents get lured by money.”
This newspaper has in the past reported on the rise in the number of child marriages in the trafficking hotbeds of North and South 24-Parganas.
Rights activists have attributed the spike to an acute economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.
Many parents are considering getting their minor daughters married to men who do not demand dowry. Traffickers are on the lookout for such vulnerable girls.
The visits of police officers to schools are mostly about interactions in the presence of teachers who would coax students to speak about their fears, insecurities and what parents often have to say about getting married early.
“We tell the students that nothing can come in the way of their higher studies. The state government has several welfare initiatives in place, including the recently introduced loan scheme, and in case of any difficulty, they can talk to us directly,” said a senior police officer overseeing the functioning of the three police stations in the interiors of North 24-Parganas.”
The coastal interiors of North and South 24-Parganas account for nearly 30 per cent of trafficking cases in Bengal according to figures available with the police.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in its latest Crime In India report, said the number of cases registered under Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCM) in 2021 was 1,050, up by 34 per cent compared to 2020.
This means while an average of two cases of child marriages were registered in 2020, in 2021 it jumped to about three cases a day.
Officers said during an interaction with students of the Chakpatli High School inHasnabad, the enthusiasm of the kids prompted them to extend the interactive session well beyond the schedule.
“We tried explaining to the students how they can fall prey to social media networks and how child marriage, trafficking and cyber-crime were connected to one another in this part of Bengal,” said a senior police officer of Hasnabad police station.
“Before leaving we shared contact details of all police personnel. We asked to call up anyone in case they felt an urge to communicate with us.”
“Police have had to start a new column in their record books — marriage for trafficking. In September five such cases were recorded in Hasnabad alone,” said Sakila Khatunof Keya. “The cops often tend to show trafficked women as ‘missing’ so the actual figures never emerge,” she said.