Atonu Choudhurri

Pashmina Khatun (name changed) looks too traumatised for a 15-year-old. After being forced by her penurious parents to marry a man nearly thrice her age, the teenager was sold to a brothel in Pune by her husband. Though she was later rescued by members of Jabala Action Research Organisation (JARO), her problems did not end there. “I cannot bear the continuous taunting by our neighbours. My parents and I can hardly leave the house because of it. Some of them even throw stones at our house,” narrates a teary-eyed Pashmina, who currently stays with her parents in Murshidabad district that shares its borders with Bangladesh.

“At first, it was my 45-year-old husband who started beating me while demanding dowry. Later, my in-laws joined him," says the teenager while narrating her ordeal. "When my parents failed to meet the demand, my husband called a pimp and asked him to take me away.”

Members of the Kolkata-based NGO then rescued her with the help of police and convinced her parents—who had earlier forged her birth details for her marriage—to take her back. With social stigma and ostracisation knocking at their doors, Pashmina's parents are now in two minds about keeping her at their home, forcing her to consider other inhumane options. “I am only left with two options now—either end my life or return to the place from where I was rescued in Pune,” says the young girl while dabbing a tear.

Women rights activist Saswati Ghosh says the rate of re-trafficking among survivors is as high as 57%. "The victims are often criminalised, harassed and not easily accepted by their community,” she explains. Pashmina's story can be a case in point.

“Unlike other people in my community, we accepted our daughter after she was brought back from a brothel. But I don't know for how long I can keep her. I have to marry two more daughters and now their future is at stake,” says Fazila, 35, Pashmina's mother.


Pashmina's plight is similar to thousands of others in West Bengal's Murshidabad district where 71% of the girls below 18 years are forced into marriage their parents, says Ghosh, who further cites National Crime Records Bureau data to substantiate her claim that conviction rate for child marriages is low in Bengal. “Another shocking thing is that the overall conviction rate for crime against women in India stands at 18.9 %. At 3.3%, the conviction rate is lowest for Bengal in the country,” she adds.


Baitali Ganguly from JARO says Bengal accounts for highest number of cases where accused in child trafficking cases are not framed. The 2012 NCRB data stated that 88 people were arrested for their involvement in child marriages between 2008-12. “If you look at the NCRB data between 2008-2012, you'll find the average age of brides to be 15 years in Bengal. The present situation is also far more alarming than North Indian states,” Ghosh says.

“From my decades of experience in dealing with trafficking cases across West Bengal, I can say that trafficking is closely associated with child marriage. Traffickers often pose as prospective grooms and lure parents' with money. They cash in on parents' inability to get their daughters married to families of their choice due to lack of financial resources. Traffickers often approach such poor families with a marriage proposal,” observes Ganguly.


A 2011 UNICEF report states that every second girl in the high prevalence child marriage districts such as Murshidabad(61.04%), Malda(56.07%), Birbhum(58.03%) and Purulia(54.03%) was married off before 18—the legal age for girls to get married. The total number of underage married girls in Bengal, who have also become mothers before the age of 15, stood at a whopping 27,082 in 2013—the second highest in the country then. In West Midnapore district alone, at least 15 cases of child marriages were found to be linked to trafficking, as per the findings by NGO Action AID. In South 24 Parganas district, out of the total child marriages that take place around 50% of the girls are trafficked in the name of marriage.


“Bengal presents a strange case of increasing numbers of forced minor marriages and parents being responsible in such incidents. Parents even ask school headmasters to issue fake age certificates for under-aged girls,” says Ghosh. "Parents discharge their 'duties' by marrying their daughters off, with little interest in keeping in touch with them."

The imminent threat factor often affects data collection method and this results in underestimated figures. "The NGO field workers often face threats to their life while collecting data," says Ghosh adding that the actual numbers of underage marriage and trafficking are more than what the records suggest.

Geographical factors in Bengal also help traffickers to have a free run. The state shares nine districts boundaries with Bangladesh. Young girls, who belong to poor families, are often lured with promises of marriage or jobs and trafficked to cities like Dhaka, Chittagong and Rajshahi in Bangladesh, where they are sold to brothels or into domestic slavery, Ganguly says. Though the state government initiated a host of measures, including efforts to create a database of known traffickers, the efforts have hardly borne fruits.

The 2016 NCRB report stated that at 3,579, West Bengal had the highest number of human trafficking cases (44%) in the country. It is followed by Rajasthan with 1,422 cases (17.49%) and Gujarat with 648 such cases (4.9%) at second and third spots respectively.


Activists also allege the NCRB data is not in sync with the data compiled by the NGOs—diminishing the severity of the problem. "Cops in Bengal do not register trafficking and minor marriage cases as they come under pressure from influential people with strong political connections. Even NGO field workers are threatened with dire consequences if they attempt to compile data,” says Ghosh.

Socialist Biswajit Ghosh makes mention of several factors responsible for under-reporting of the phenomenon. “Trafficking is very hard to measure because in many cases (mainly when the women are not in sex trade), the family members, relatives, and friends have consent about young girls going to distant places for lucrative earning. Problems usually start when the flow of money sent by the girl stops and the communication link is cut off. We have come across certain cases of young girls from Hooghly district who were trafficked to Mumbai to work at nightclubs and dance bars. Neither the girls nor their parents wanted the cases to be reported to the police as the girls went on sending remittances. The matter, however, became public when the girls returned to their homes due to problems at Mumbai,” he says.

Ghosh further says that the failure of parents, kin and civil society to support such girls and children has worsened the situation. “Political influence and cops' reluctance to register cases are also factors that result in low conviction rate,” he adds. “The government has to come up with rehabilitation schemes to help  those girls to resume a normal and fruitful life by arranging for her education and vocational training. Creation of alternative income opportunities for the prevention of re-trafficking is a must."

(Not using the term "victims" as NGO workers and women activists refuse to call those girls victims. One woman researcher of Jadavpur University's Women's Studies department simply refused me to give video interview of rescued girls after I used the term once) Thanks,