A total of twenty-six girls trafficked to India were brought back to the country on Monday morning.
Most of the returnees are residents of bordering areas and aged between 12 and 16 years.
Most of them had to wait for 6 months to 5 years in Mumbai jail before they were rescued by Rescue Foundation Mumbai and Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association from different brothels in the Indian state of Maharastra.
Jahanara (not her real name), 14, seemingly annoyed with her bitter experience, refused to talk to the media about her past in Khulna and in Mumbai brothels.
‘Nobody is trustworthy, not even women’, she said refusing to talk to a lady reporter.
She expressed fear whether the society would accept her or not, but she eagerly wants to go back to her family.
BNWLA officer Redwanuzzaman Hamlet said most of the trafficked girls were rescued from the brothels in different areas of Maharastra.
They were locked up for many days, starved, beaten, burned with cigarettes and gang-raped until they gave in.
A 15-year-old garment worker said that one of her female colleagues requested her to go to her sister’s house for some money.
She was served juice, drinking which she became unconscious only to find herself in Kolkata when she regained her sense.
The brokers had sold her to a brothel before the police rescued her after some days and sent her to the Rescue Foundation where she had to wait for about three years to return to the country, she said narrating her ordeal.
Talking to New Age, BNWLA chairman Salma Ali said many Bangladeshi girls are trafficked into the red-light areas of Indian cities every year and it is a big challenge to rehabilitate and provide employment to them for their socio-economic empowerment after their return.
-With New Age input
