Police in South 24-Parganas are campaigning against human trafficking by telling villagers real-life horror stories of some of the rescued women.
Teams including more than one policewoman are narrating to people, especially women, accounts of some of those who were lured, tricked, trafficked, and later rescued.
The identities of the survivors are protected during the interactions. But their trials are narrated in detail starting from how the traffickers lured the girls or women with the promise of a better life beyond the village and the situation they would eventually find themselves in.
A teenager from Bakultala, for instance, was promised a job in a beauty parlour in Mumbai after marriage. On the way, the trafficker stopped at a place in Bihar’s Sitamarhi and sold her to a brothel owner.
A Class IX student from Joynagar was lured with the promise of marriage. She ran away from her home with the person who later sold her to the owner of a dance troupe in Uttar Pradesh’s Balia.
“We want young women and their parents to realise the pain that these rescued girls have gone through,” said Atish Biswas, sub-divisional police officer of Baruipur.
“The shock that these stories bring is possibly the best way to make people aware of the traps laid by human traffickers. We have decided to narrate such stories of hardships and pain of some of the survivors, without disclosing their identities, as part of our awareness drive.”
The interactions are being held at temporary police camps and at primary schools in places like Kultali, Baruipur, Joynagar and Bakultala.
South and North 24-Parganas are the trafficking hotbeds of Bengal. While many girls from these two districts are trafficked to red-light areas in other cities, some are forced to join dance troupes in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Women cops in the teams are telling girls how to stay away from the lure of easy money that the traffickers usually offer as bait.
They are telling the girls it is better to stay with parents and finish school instead of running away with a man and ending up working as a servant or in a dance troupe for a pittance.
“We will hold similar sessions in Meriganj-I gram panchayat in Kultali and Bamangachi gram panchayat in Joynagar over the next few days as part of our continuous drive to sensitise students and teenagers about trafficking,” Biswas said.
Officers of the anti-human trafficking unit of the Baruipur police district said that among the missing complaints received at police stations, a significant number is about teenage girls. An even bigger number remains unreported with parents refusing to seek police help.