KOZHIKODE: Three victims of sex trafficking from Bangladesh have spent eight years in the care homes Vellimadukunnu here hoping for their repatriation to their home country. But still their return is nowhere in sight.
The three girls, Heera, Nonu, and Meena (names changed) who were 13, 14 and 15 respectively then, were first sheltered in the children’s home, later in the ‘Aftercare home’ and once they turned 21, in the Mahila Mandiram. The scars on their wrists reveal the tortures they have undergone and the number of times they tried to end their lives.
Heera was the first to arrive. Though not sure of her correct date of birth, she remembers being taken to Mumbai to stay with her elder sister, who was pregnant. She was just 13 then. Heera stayed with her sister and brother-in-law and the newborn until they were caught for not having passport and other documents.
She somehow escaped the police net and managed to stay back in Mumbai, only to fall in the trap of the child sex traffickers networked around Bangladesh, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kozhikode.
A female member of the gang took her to a beauty salon and cut her hair short. Nobody hurt her during her stay in Bangalore. “Many girls were brought from several places and we stayed in the same room. I couldn’t protest as a man called Abbas showed me a knife and threatened that I would be finished. I was brought to Kozhikode and many abused me in a flat. They took me in a car to Malappuram and we were caught by the police near Kalpakanchery in Malappuram district,” said Heera.
Nonu and Meena had a similar plight. They were taken by another woman from Bangladesh, offering jobs in Mumbai. “I cut my wrist several times, thinking that at least when I am taken to a hospital, I could escape. But they were clever. They brought doctors every time we tried to commit suicide,” said Noidha.
These girls turned hopeful after another woman victim of trafficking from Bangladesh, Ayesha Siddiqa, was repatriated recently. After Ayesha’s plight was revealed, the officials from Bangladesh High Commissioner’s office visited the homes. But the delay in the legal procedures here are delaying their deportation.
The Manjeri district sessions court, where their cases are pending, said that the evidence collection in Heera’s case will be over this month. Seventh accused in the same case is in remand custody in an Ernakulam prison. Second accused in the other two girls’ case was absconding and he was recently produced in Manjeri magistrate court in another case. So, these these two cases have to be clubbed together for a speedy trial, said court sources.
All that these girls want is speedy deportation. Heera works in the kitchen of one of the homes and sends home her salary. “We are Bangladeshis, and no one here will accept us as normal people. If we go back, at least we can support our families there,” says a tearful Nonu.
